Several weeks before president Obama made the tragic decision to approve expanded offshore drilling, Maryland Senators Cardin and Mikulski joined eight other coastal-state senators on a letter to their colleagues Kerry, Lieberman and Graham pressing the trio to keep expanded offshore drilling out of their now-floundering climate and energy package.

In the letter the Senators warned about the serious threats such drilling posed to their coast lines:

While technological advances have attempted to lower the environmental and economic risks of drilling, experience has shown that no technology is foolproof. Since 1964 offshore operators have had 40 spills of greater than 42,000 gallons