INSTITUTE INDEX: Big Oil's push for seismic testing meets resistance

Number of people who packed a town council meeting this week in Kure Beach, N.C. to protest the mayor's decision to sign a letter drafted by an oil and gas industry lobby group in support of seismic air gun testing off the Atlantic Coast, the first step toward opening the area to offshore drilling: 100s

Hours the protesters spent standing in the meeting room and parking lot, waiting for a chance to speak out on the practice, which involves shooting loud blasts of compressed air from ships to the seabed to find oil and gas deposits: 2

Hours the council spent listening to more than 50 public commenters, most of them opposed to seismic testing, as fellow protesters pounded on the walls and cheered: 2

Number of public comments the Obama administration received on the proposal to allow seismic testing off the Atlantic Coast: more than 55,000

Date by which the U.S. Interior Department is scheduled to release an environmental impact study looking at what seismic testing in the Atlantic would do to whales, dolphins and other marine life: 2/28/2014

Number of times more intense the seismic air gun blasts are than the roar of a jet engine: 100,000

Number of marine mammals the U.S. government estimates would be injured by seismic testing, including critically endangered North Atlantic right whales: 138,500

Percent drop in fish catches that fisherfolk in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago reported following 56 documented seismic tests in their coastal waters: 50 to 70

Sales impact of North Carolina's recreational fishing industry alone in 2011: $2 billion

Of its commercial seafood industry: almost $800 million

Estimated annual income that would be generated by drilling for oil and gas off North Carolina's coast once the industry is fully up and running: $1.9 billion

Date on which the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held an oversight hearing on seismic testing in the Atlantic: 1/10/2014

Number of marine scientists who testified at the hearing, which the environmental advocacy group Oceana blasted as a "dog and pony show": 0

Days earlier that Democratic members of the subcommittee wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asking for improved offshore drilling safety requirements before considering expansion of drilling into new areas: 2

Number of petitions against seismic testing in the Atlantic that Oceana collected last year and delivered to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: more than 100,000

(Click on figure to go to source.)