Fla. lawmakers will fight Trump on drilling plan

As the Trump administration moves to vastly expand oil and gas exploration, Florida lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are vowing to stop drilling off the state’s coasts.

The new five-year plan announced Thursday would give the energy industry access to nearly all of the United States’ coastal waters, including areas off the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico where drilling has been blocked for decades.

The plan would pave the way for drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico after a moratorium protecting Florida’s coast expires in 2022. Leases for drilling rights haven’t

been available there since 1988.

Drilling rights would also be auctioned in the straits of Florida, according to the plan.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said that responsible development of offshore energy resources would boost jobs and economic security while providing billions of dollars to fund conservation along U.S. coastlines.

The agency will gather input from Congress and other leaders before the plan is finalized, a process that “will not happen overnight,” Zinke said.

Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, said he would oppose offshore drilling in Florida and plans to meet with Zinke to voice his concern.

“My top priority is to ensure that Florida’s natural resources are protected,” said Scott, who is expected to challenge Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson this year.

The topic of oil drilling did not come up Sunday when Scott had lunch with Trump at the president’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Scott spokesman John Tupps said. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration will continue to work with Scott.

“Our goal certainly isn’t to cross Gov. Scott,” she said during a daily news briefing Thursday. “Just because we may differ on issues from time to time doesn’t mean that we can’t have an incredibly strong and good relationship.”

In a speech on the Senate floor, Nelson blasted the move, invoking the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill that left Pensacola Beach’s “sugary white sands covered up with black oil.”

“We know the economic damage that did all up and down the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.

In 2006, Nelson and then-U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., brokered a deal to ban drilling off Florida’s Gulf Coast through 2022.

Nelson has long maintained that oil rigs being “too close” to Florida’s shoreline could hurt the state’s tourism-driven economy and military training areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio called on the Trump administration to recognize “bipartisan efforts” to extend the moratorium protecting Florida’s coast from drilling.

On Twitter, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City, said Florida is united in opposition to drilling. “Our voice has been clear from the start: we will not tolerate drilling near our coast,” he said.

Industry groups praised the announcement, which would be the most expansive offshore drilling proposal in decades. The proposal follows President Donald Trump’s executive order in April encouraging more drilling rights in federal waters, part of the administration’s strategy to help the U.S. achieve “energy dominance” in the global market.

A coalition of more than 60 environmental groups denounced the plan, saying in a joint statement that it would do “severe and unacceptable harm” to America’s oceans, coastal economies, public health and marine life.

“These ocean waters are not President Trump’s personal playground. They belong to all Americans and the public wants them preserved and protected, not sold off to multinational oil companies,” read the statement, which was signed by leaders of the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.

“This extreme proposal is a shameful giveaway” to the oil and gas industry, which supported Trump in the election campaign, the groups said.

The proposal comes less than a week after the Trump administration proposed to rewrite or kill rules on offshore oil and gas drilling imposed after the deadly 2010 rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and triggered a massive oil spill that continued for months.

The administration called the rules an unnecessary burden on industry and said rolling them back will encourage more energy production. Environmentalists said Trump would raise the risk of more deadly oil spills.

The administration’s latest plan would open up about 90 percent of the U.S. outer continental shelf, including waters near California and Maine.

Forty-seven potential auctions of drilling rights would be offered — the most ever proposed, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Nineteen sales would be offered off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Pacific region, 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and nine in the Atlantic region.

Floridians will get a chance to comment on the proposal Feb. 8 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Tallahassee. The hearing is one of 23 to be hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management across the nation between Jan. 16 and Feb. 28.