The latest developments come as environmental activists are ratcheting up calls for a ban on offshore drilling. Earlier this week over 200 people took part in protests outside the San Francisco offices of oil giants Chevron and BP. Twenty-six people took part in a blockade outside BP’s offices, and fifteen were arrested. The Reverend Kenneth Davis of the Bay Area Coalition of Concerned Citizens spoke out as the activists stopped in front of the Chevron building.

Rev. Kenneth Davis: “It’s not a nice thing when we think about the poorest people in the world have to suffer the injustices of those that inhabit places like this. We want you to all understand that these robbers, crooks and killers, they also come in three-piece suits and ties. Here is environmental injustice. Environmental injustice, when they can pour the pollution in my neighborhood, make me breathe it, and tell me that I should love it.”