Maritime communities, environmental groups, and the lawmakers who represent them have stepped forward to criticize the Trump administration’s proposal to license new oil drilling operations off the coastlines of Florida and California.
The announcement came on 20 November from the Department of Interior, which called the program an “expansive 11th national offshore leasing program to advance U.S. energy dominance.”
The U.S. government has not allowed new drilling in federal waters off either of the states' coasts for years – leasing in California federal waters has been reduced since the 1980s and drilling off the coast of Florida has been restricted since 1995 due concerns about oil spills.
The new initiative directs the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to end what the Department of Interior called “the restrictive Biden 2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program” in its announcement.
“Offshore oil and gas production does not happen overnight. It takes years of planning, investment, and hard work before barrels reach the market,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a release. “The Biden administration slammed the brakes on offshore oil and gas leasing and crippled the long-term pipeline of America’s offshore production. By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come.”
The proposal has been met with criticism from coastal stakeholders, lawmakers, and nongovernmental organizations in both states.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and vocal critic of President Trump, said the move was a "reckless attempt to sell out our coastline to his [Trump's] Big Oil donors" and that the plan is "dead in the water."
“Californians remember the environmental and economic devastation of past oil spills,” Newsom said. “For decades, California has stood firm in our opposition to new offshore drilling, and nothing will change that. We will use every tool at our disposal to protect our coastline.”
California Representative Jared Huffman, a Democrat, said that the plan’s scope was larger than many might realize.
“This is not just a little bit of offshore drilling. This is the entire California coast, every inch of Alaska, even the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Basically, everywhere Big Oil has been salivating to drill for decades," Huffman said.
Criticism of the plan came from both sides of the aisle in Florida.
Republican representative Jimmy Patronis organized a letter from Florida Republicans to Trump asking him to withhold specific locations from the leasing plan on the grounds that drilling there would endanger national security, as those areas serve as military training grounds.
Republican Senator Rick Scott reportedly said that the Florida coastline “must remain off the table for oil drilling.”
When Florida governor and Trump ally Ron DeSantis was asked, during an unrelated 21 November press conference, about the proposal, he said that he believed it would “would weaken protections that we worked very hard to establish offshore.”
Environmental organizations from both states were harshly critical of the plan. Sierra Club Florida Political and Legislative Director Javier Estevez said the organization will fight against Trump's push to drill off the state's coast.
"We refuse to allow our coastal economies, quality of life, and irreplaceable natural resources to be sacrificed for corporate profit," Estevez said.
On the other coast the Monterey Bay Aquarium pushed back calling it a step bakwards.
“The science is clear," Monterey Bay Aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard said. "We’re facing life-threatening impacts of climate change, and this ill-conceived effort to open massive parts of our ocean to offshore oil and gas leasing is a major step backward in the nation’s urgently needed transition away from fossil fuels.”
Monterey Bay Chief Conservation and Science Officer Margaret Spring added that the plan threatened coastal economies.
“Common sense, science, and hard lessons from the devastating impacts of oil spills on wildlife, people and the local economy tell us we need to reject new oil and gas leasing in our ocean,” Spring said. "In doing so, decision makers would unlock a better future for coastal communities and economies, tourism, sustainable fisheries, and wildlife. That would benefit California, Americans, and our ocean, for decades to come.”
Both states have been host to serious drilling accidents in the past. One spill in California in 2015 resulted in a USD 230 million (EUR 199 million) class action settlement that included fishermen and other seafood stakeholders. The Trump administration recently supported the company behind it, Plains All American Pipeline, in a bid to reopen production in the area.
In Florida, Democratic Representative Kathy Castor said the state was still recovering from the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.
Nonprofit EarthJustice announced that it would sue the Trump administration on these grounds.
In a press release about that decision, the environmental organization highlighted the experiences of coastal residents and seafood stakeholders, whose lives were changed by the spill.
“When we’d be offshore fishing, we’d see growths on the fish. We’d see gross stuff inside the fish,” Florida resident J.J. Waters said. “We didn’t start fishing again until the following late spring and summer.”
