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Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. will join Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker at 11:15 a.m. on the north side deck of Taylor Pavilion located at Fifth and Ocean avenues in Belmar to stress opposition to the Trump administration’s exploration of offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.

The three led the fight to remove dangerous provision from the Obama Administration’s 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program and return now to protect the Obama administration’s ban of offshore drilling from Virginia to New England.

On Friday, hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand offshore drilling for oil and gas, members of the Jersey Shore Surfrider Foundation sprang into action, rallying a group of supporters to spread the message along the Asbury Park boardwalk against the practice.

“The definition of insanity is exactly what is happening here,” restaurateur Marilyn Schlossbach said. “How many times are we going to be fighting to protect the coast. Tourism depends on it; the future for all of kids, our grandchildren, depends on it. The ocean is a living, breathing organism that needs to be protected by everyone. We are all standing here enjoying it, let’s keep that going.”

New Jersey’s coastal communities are the primary driver of a tourism industry that supports 500,000 jobs and generates $38 billion in economic activities annually, state officials said. Offshore drilling is also a threat to commercial and recreational fisheries.

In addition to the inappropriate nature of spoiling the coast, I know that drilling will benefit [Rex Wayne] Tillerson and Exxon, and I would like to see Trump’s taxes and see if this will benefit him as well,” said Surfrider member Bill Rosenblatt. “But from a bigger perspective, fossil fuels are not where we should be going; this is like bring back the VCR.

Instead Rosenblatt and his wife Sara say solar, wind and electricity is the right direction. 

“I think they should put the drilling in front of Ivanka’s [Trump] house in Elberon,” Sara Rosenblatt said.

New legislation introduced by Pallone, Menendez and Booker – the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism [COAST] Anti-Drilling Act, would ban oil and gas exploration, development, and production in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Clean ocean is the goose that is laying the golden eggs for the Jersey Shore and for a lot of places,” said Surfrider’s John Weber. Why would we would want to threaten this economy with offshore oil drilling. It just doesn’t make sense. I think the point about who is benefiting is a really great question that we should all be asking. We have it pretty good. We just need to keep this thing [ocean] clean and oil free and things will be good.”

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