Deepwater Disaster: Response and Recovery on the Gulf Coast
The catastrophic explosion that caused an oil spill from a BP offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico is now the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Even as representatives from the oil industry and the government work to manage the crisis, we still don't know what the full long-term impact will be to the fragile Gulf Coast. We'll discuss what the current situation looks like, what environmental groups and activists are doing to help with the cleanup and, more importantly, how to break our country's addiction to oil and move toward developing alternative energy sources.
David Pettit joined the Los Angeles staff of the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2007 as the senior attorney in charge of NRDC’s Southern California Air Quality Project. He is an experienced civil litigator, having tried more than 100 cases in state and federal courts. For 17 years, David was a partner in Caldwell, Leslie, Newcombe & Pettit, a Los Angeles law firm specializing in complex civil litigation. Prior to that, David was an associate at O’Melveny & Myers, a deputy city attorney for the City of Santa Monica, and a staff attorney with San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services. David also is active in the legal profession. He has served as a Judge Pro Tem in the Los Angeles Superior and Municipal Courts, and authored articles on land use, and environmental and civil rights for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, Los Angeles Lawyer magazine and the National Law Journal.
Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. Her work has also been featured in the New York Times Room for Debate blog, The Guardian's Comment is Free, The Center for Public Integrity, The Washington Independent, ForeignPolicy.com, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capitol. She misses trees and having a Congressional representative with voting power, but thinks D.C. is pretty great anyway.
Bob Cavnar is a 30-plus year veteran of the oil and gas industry with deep experience in business start-ups, turn-arounds, and management of oil and gas companies, following a personal commitment to corporate responsibility, environmental leadership, and safe operations. He is Founder and Editor of The Daily Hurricane, a blog devoted to discussions of issues around energy, health, science, education, current affairs, and politics. He is also a contributer on the Huffington Post, and a regular commentator on national networks and cable television as well as in newspapers, bringing his unique perspective and experience to discussions on energy, healthcare, and politics. He has written extensively on global and national energy policy, our faltering healthcare system, and party politics.
Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. Van is a co-founder of three successful non-profit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change and Green For All. He is the best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs: The Green-Collar Economy. He served as the green jobs advisor in the Obama White House in 2009. Van is currently a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress. Additionally, he is a senior policy advisor at Green For All. He also holds a joint appointment at Princeton University, as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
