About 100 demonstrators’ protest signs showing oil-covered birds and slogans like “Stop Offshore Drilling” and “Seize BP’s Assets” greeted evening commuters at the intersection of First and Race streets in Port Angeles on Thursday.
A similar rally was held in Port Townsend at the state ferry dock on Thursday. It drew about 30 people.
MoveOn staged the rallies against a federal bailout of BP PLC for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The regulatory body did not work,” said Jim Schunemann of Sequim, who attended the Port Angeles rally. “They literally let BP write the report.”
The rallies were two of about 120 that MoveOn sponsored nationwide this week.
An April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment, killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well, and some has reached shore.
“This is meant to call attention to two current crises: the environmental damage from the oil spill and the relationships between corporations like BP and the government,” said MoveOn organizer Linda Brewster in Port Townsend.
“These demonstrations are happening across the country,” she added.
“We hope it will get our [representatives] to support bills that will hold corporations responsible.”
Schunemann and others at the Port Angeles rally challenged the corporate influence in the oil industry and championed renewable energy to prevent similar spills from happening.
Will Parsinen of Port Angeles said Republican lawmakers are trying to put a cap on BP’s liability for the cleanup.
“I feel they made the mess, you pay for it,” Parsinen said.
“If they want corporations out of government, let’s keep them out. The only time they seem to want them is when they want a bailout.”
Ron Puff of Sequim said U.S. citizens shouldn’t “get stuck with the bill.”
“We want [U.S. Rep.] Norm Dicks and [U.S. Sen.] Patty Murray to join [U.S. Sen.] Maria Cantwell to sign the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act,” Puff said.
The government has estimated that 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons of oil are leaking in the gulf per day, but a scientist on a task force studying the flow said the actual rate may be between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million, according to The Associated Press.
U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt, who is coordinating the estimates, said the most credible daily flow rate at the moment is between 840,000 gallons and 1.68 million gallons, AP reported.
Murray is a Democrat from Freeland and Cantwell is a Democrat from Mountlake Terrace. Dicks, D-Belfair, represents the 6th Congressional District, which includes the North Olympic Peninsula.