A Resolution to Oppose Fossil Fuel Export Facilities
In Washington and Oregon
Willapa Hills Audubon Society
Passed by Vote of the Board of Directors, June 11, 2014
Whereas: Fossil Fuel Export facilities are proposed at many NW locations including Whatcom County, Grays Harbor County, Coos Bay, at several locations along the Columbia River, and new proposals appear with increasing frequency; and,
Whereas: The increased burning of fossil fuels will lead to increased levels of greenhouse gas in the global environment, pollution, and dangerous climate change; and,
Whereas: The extraction of most newly exportable fossil fuels is most often environmentally unsound, such as mountain-top removal in search of coal, strip coal mining, the fracking process in search of oil and gas, or of poor quality, such as the tar sands oil of Canada; and,
Whereas: The transport of fossil fuels, particularly by rail, is most often dangerous and/or dirty and disruptive, and requires large scale facilities in wetlands and next to ecologically sensitive waterways; and, Whereas: Conservation of United States' fossil fuel resources is a national security and energy independence issue, worthy of detailed debate; and,
Whereas: Conservation of energy in the US is becoming increasingly important; and,
Whereas: Willapa Hills Audubon already opposes several proposed LNG ports along the lower Columbia River, and the proposed coal export facility at Longview, and oil export at Clatskanie; now, then,
Be it Hereby Resolved: Willapa Hills Audubon opposes all export of fossil fuels from NW American ports, (with the possible exception of derivatives of natural gas, which will be determined on a case by case basis), and that this resolution will stand until changed or amended in future.