While much of America is absorbed with one of the most tumultuous elections in our history, President Obama’s final days in office are fast approaching, and it’s easy to forget that there’s still time for him to make some crucial decisions for our environment. For instance, seismic airgun blasting, a dangerous process used to search for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean’s surface, continues to move forward in the Atlantic Ocean.

Oceana applauded President Obama for his landmark decision to prevent offshore drilling in the Atlantic earlier this year, but the job isn’t finished. This protection is only for the next five years. A vast stretch of water off the East Coast, from Delaware to Florida, is currently at risk from seismic airgun blasting. Seismic airguns create one of the loudest manmade sounds in the ocean, firing intense blasts of compressed air every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for weeks to months on end. Sound is as integral to the underwater world as light is to ours. From crabs and fish to dolphins and whales, marine creatures rely on sound for survival. It’s distressing to think that we would consider exposing Atlantic ecosystems to such extreme and disturbing levels of noise.

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Big Oil continually downplays the consequences of seismic airgun blasting. But a plethora of peer-reviewed, scientific studies demonstrate negative impacts to many different types of marine life. For example, in one study, researchers observed bowhead whales during seismic survey activity in the Arctic. Upon first hearing airgun noise, the whales called more loudly to each other, trying to overcome the noise of the blasts. As airgun noise intensified, the whale call rates leveled off and then decreased. Eventually the whales stopped calling altogether. Marine mammals depend heavily on sound for communicating, feeding and navigating. By silencing their calls, the drowning noise of seismic airguns is robbing these whales of their very survival skills. In other studies, researchers found noise from seismic blasting to cause additional behavioral changes, reduce catch rates in important commercial fish species, damage fish hearing structures, produce developmental delays in scallops, and even contribute to habitat displacement of certain whales. Even the government estimates that seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic could injure as many as 138,000 marine mammals like whales and dolphins, while disturbing the vital activities of millions more.

Last year, 75 leading scientists sent a letter to President Obama urging him "to reject the Interior Department's analysis and its decision to introduce seismic oil and gas surveys in the Atlantic." And it’s not just scientists that oppose seismic airgun blasting. One hundred twenty municipalities, comprising 90 percent of all the coastal communities from Cape May, N.J. to Cape Canaveral, Fla., formally oppose offshore drilling and/or exploration for oil and gas in the Atlantic. More than 1,200 national, state and local elected officials, along with organizations representing more than 12,000 business interests have formally opposed these same activities. This wall of opposition has developed along the coast because these individuals and groups understand what is at risk if dangerous oil activities proceed: Nearly 1.4 million jobs and over $95 billion in gross domestic product rely on healthy ocean ecosystems.

President Obama has the authority to permanently protect the Atlantic Ocean and prevent offshore drilling. Furthermore, he can prevent the harmful exploratory process of seismic airgun blasting from devastating our marine ecosystems—a process that’s not necessary with offshore drilling off the table in the Atlantic.

Let’s finish closing that door. Let’s lock it and throw away the key. Let’s turn towards a better future—a future in which America rejects harmful, dirty and outdated fossil fuels, paving the way to solidify America’s global leadership in embracing clean energy technology. That better future can happen. But one of the first steps is to protect the Atlantic. Forever.

Claire Douglass, Climate and Energy Campaign Director at Oceana

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.