California has already seen what offshore drilling can do to our coast. In 2015, a broken pipeline near Refugio State Beach, close to Santa Barbara, spilled oil across the sand and into the ocean. Birds and marine mammals were coated in oil, some of them didn't survive, and beaches stayed closed while local businesses and fishing families lost income they couldn't get back.

Now the federal government wants to open California's coast to new offshore oil and gas drilling again. That means new rigs, new pipelines, and a new risk of another spill like the one that hit Santa Barbara — the kind of disaster that closes beaches, kills wildlife, and takes years for a coastal community to recover from.

"That moment led me to join the fight against offshore drilling off California's coast," actor and Oceana board member Ted Danson wrote in a CalMatters commentary, describing why he started fighting to protect the coast decades ago.

California lawmakers have already passed Assembly Bill 1448, a bill that would make it harder to open our coast to new drilling and stop old offshore oil equipment from being reused for it. Now it's up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign it into law.

We don't have to wait for another spill to know how this story ends. We've watched oil wash up on our beaches before, and we shouldn't have to watch it happen again.

Sign this petition to urge Gov. Newsom to sign AB 1448 and protect California's coast before another spill puts our beaches, wildlife, and coastal communities at risk.