Feds unveil plan for ocean drilling
6 areas off California coast among U.S. waters targeted
Nearly all U.S. waters, including the long-protected California coast, would be opened to new offshore oil- and gas-drilling rigs under a sweeping proposal that the Trump administration unveiled Thursday.
Administration officials said the plan to vastly increase the number of drilling leases offered in the Pacific and other oceans would boost the nation’s energy independence. But the proposal was met with widespread concern from California and other coastal states that the economic benefits would not justify the risk of an environmentally disastrous oil spill.
No oil or gas lease has been issued for the California coast since 1984, and both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the state have generally supported limiting drilling operations to the few dozen rigs that have long operated in Southern California.
But the administration’s new proposal calls for overturning the moratorium on additional Pacific exploration and auctioning off six new drilling leases in California waters — two apiece off the northern, central and southern parts of the state — as well as one off either Oregon or Washington. The leases would be in federal waters, running from about 3 miles to 200 miles offshore.
The plan, which must undergo months of public review before it becomes policy, did not detail specific sites for drilling but could open up several spots that oil companies have long coveted, including waters off La Jolla in San Diego County, Malibu near Los Angeles and Cambria in San Luis Obispo County, industry experts say.
Farther north, much of the ocean in U.S. waters lies within national marine sanctuaries, which are protected from oil and gas exploration. However, the Trump administration is reviewing marine sanctuaries that have been added within the past decade for possible downsizing, including the 2015 expansion of California’s Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Should administration officials choose to roll back this sanctuary, areas off Sonoma County
and Mendocino County could be opened to drilling as well.
“This goes way too far,” said Richard Charter, a Bodega Bay resident and senior fellow of the marine conservation group Ocean Foundation. “I’ve never seen anything like this in the last 40 years.”
California officeholders were also quick to criticize the plan. Gov. Jerry Brown as well as Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris called it short-sighted and not in the interest of West Coast residents, including the tourism and fishing sectors. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he would look into legal options to halt new oil operations.
“The days of drilling for oil are numbered,” Feinstein said in an email. “We have clean energy alternatives that can grow our economy faster without jeopardizing our coastal economies and natural resources.”
Beyond California, several governors, including those in Oregon and Washington as well as Florida Republican Rick Scott, were also critical. Scott, a supporter of the president, said he had asked to meet with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who released the proposal Thursday, to explain “the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration.”
At a news conference in Washington, D.C., Zinke said he would listen to states’ concerns. But he added, “This is a start at looking at energy dominance and looking at our offshore assets.”
The proposal is the latest to fulfill President Trump’s commitment to reduce regulations on businesses and support new energy production. It stems from an executive order signed by Trump in April that directed the Interior Department to rewrite former President Barack Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan.
The order also called for reconsideration of safety rules put in place after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster killed 11 people and spilled millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In response, the administration last month proposed loosening the standards.
The plan released Thursday calls for selling 47 new oil and gas leases between 2019 and 2024 in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well as in the Gulf of Mexico — the most that have ever been proposed in a five-year program. The effort replaces the Obama administration’s plan to offer 11 new leases through 2022, 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Alaska.
Under the proposal, parts of the East Coast that have been off-limits to oil drilling for decades would be opened up, including Maine and Florida waters, as well as the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
“Nobody is better at producing clean, responsible energy than the United States,” Zinke said. He added, “As far as the economy goes, clean and reliable and affordable energy is what’s driving the economy.”
The oil industry applauded the new plan while committing to make sure environmental concerns would be addressed if new drilling begins.
“This announcement could help California increase our domestic energy production,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry group. “Currently, we import over 1 million barrels of oil in supertankers from overseas locations each and every day,” a practice that she noted poses ecological hazards of its own.
Even if the administration moves forward with the drilling plan, however, several hurdles remain for oil companies seeking new business on the West Coast. For one, oil prices remain low and won’t likely cover the cost of adding new rigs, at least at the present time.
Also, several California policies make it difficult for new drills to start operating. The State Lands Commission, which oversees the state-governed waters within 3 miles of the coast, has resolved to pursue regulations blocking any new drilling efforts. For example, the agency could seek to prohibit new pipelines that carry oil from federal waters to shore. In addition, several cities and counties have laws barring construction of new oil infrastructure.
“There are a lot of avenues available for the public and the state to fight this proposal,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, where memories of the state’s largest oil spill in 1969 remain fresh. “After more than 30 years without any new offshore oil and gas leases, this is an irresponsible move that we adamantly oppose and will face head on.”