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Trump Moves to Open Nearly All Offshore Waters to Drilling Trump Moves to Open Nearly All Offshore Waters to Drilling
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States waters, it announced Thursday. The plan would give the energy industry broad access to drilling rights in most parts of the outer continental shelf, including Pacific waters near California, Atlantic waters near Maine and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to drilling rights off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.
The proposal lifts a ban on drilling, imposed by President Barack Obama in his final days in office, that protected more than 100 million offshore acres along the Arctic and Eastern Seaboard. Such a reversal deals a serious blow to Mr. Obama’s environmental legacy and signals that the Trump administration is nowhere near done unraveling the environmental restrictions of its predecessor in an effort to promote domestic energy production. The proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental restrictions in an effort to promote energy production.
The drilling plan comes on the heels of a separate proposal to repeal offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, as well as a decision by Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. While the plan puts the Trump administration squarely on the side of the energy industry and against environmental groups, it also puts the White House at odds with a number of coastal states that oppose offshore drilling. Some of those states are led by Republicans, like Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, where the tourism industry was hit hard by the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in 2010 that killed 11 people and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’re embarking on a new path for energy dominance in America, particularly on offshore,” Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said Thursday as he unveiled the plan. “This is a clear difference between energy weakness and energy dominance. We are going to become the strongest energy superpower.” “We’re embarking on a new path for energy dominance in America, particularly on offshore,” Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said Thursday as he unveiled the drilling plan. “This is a clear difference between energy weakness and energy dominance. We are going to become the strongest energy superpower.”
Oil industry leaders cheered the reversal, calling it long overdue.Oil industry leaders cheered the reversal, calling it long overdue.
“I think the default should be that all of our offshore areas should be available,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance. He said seismic testing would be needed to assess potential oil and gas reserves in the Atlantic Ocean, though it could take years before potential testing permits are issued. “I think the default should be that all of our offshore areas should be available,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance. “These are our lands. They’re taxpayer-owned and they should be made available.”
“These are our lands,” Mr. Pyle said. “They’re taxpayer-owned and they should be made available.” Governor Scott vowed on Thursday to protect his state’s coast from drilling.
President Trump signed an executive order in April requiring the Interior Department to reconsider Mr. Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan, which had invoked an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to ban new lease sales in large areas of the Arctic and Atlantic. Mr. Trump said the ban “deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth.” “I have asked to immediately meet with Secretary Zinke to discuss the concerns I have with this plan and the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration,” he said in a statement. “My top priority is to ensure that Florida’s natural resources are protected.”
The new plan will not immediately green-light drilling. Finalizing the plan could take as long as 18 months, experts said, and in the meantime a number of states, including some led by Republican governors, are expected to challenge it in an effort to protect their coastlines. The governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington have all opposed offshore drilling plans. Virginia’s governor-elect, Ralph S. Northam, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday that expanding drilling would jeopardize his state’s tourism and fishing industries, as well as military installations. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, also a Democrat, called drilling a “critical threat” to his state’s economy.
Frank Knapp, president of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Coast, said hundreds of small East Coast businesses, from restaurants to hotels to commercial fishing operations, have mobilized against allowing drilling off their state waters. Mr. Zinke said he planned to speak with Governor Scott and other state leaders before the proposal was finalized. “It’s not going to be done overnight,” he said.
“It’s not consistent with our vibrant tourism, fishing and recreation. That’s what the East Coast is,” Mr. Knapp said. “Their concern is their livelihood, the local economies. We all saw what happened to the Gulf Coast with Deepwater Horizon.” The Obama administration blocked drilling on about 94 percent of the outer continental shelf, the submerged offshore area between state coastal waters and the deep ocean. Mr. Zinke charged that those restrictions had cost the United States billions of dollars in lost revenue and said the new proposal would make about 90 percent of those waters available for leasing.
Of particular interest to oil companies — and concern to many Florida lawmakers — will be the Interior Department’s decision as part of the pan to open the eastern Gulf of Mexico, said Kevin Book, an energy consultant and managing director of ClearView Energy Partners. He noted the area is attractive to the energy industry because there is already a large amount of infrastructure in the region. The Interior Department would open 25 of 26 regions of the outer continental shelf, leaving only the North Aleutian Basin — which President George H.W. Bush protected in an executive order — exempted from drilling.
“You can talk about the Atlantic all you want, but you’re 10 years, 15 years from production,” Mr. Book said. Still, he noted, while the move will be cheered by other states along the Gulf of Mexico like Texas and Louisiana, Florida politicians are bound to oppose the move. Early Thursday, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican, vowed to protect his state’s coast from drilling. Interior officials said they intended to hold 47 lease sales between 2019 and 2024, including 19 off the coast of Alaska and 12 in the Gulf of Mexico. Seven areas offered for new drilling would be in Pacific waters off California, where drilling has been off limits since a 1969 oil spill near Santa Barbara.
“I have asked to immediately meet with Secretary Zinke to discuss the concerns I have with this plan and the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration,” Governor Scott said in a statement. “My top priority is to ensure that Florida’s natural resources are protected.” President Trump signed an executive order in April requiring the Interior Department to reconsider Mr. Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan, which had invoked an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to block new lease sales in large areas of the Arctic and Atlantic. The ban “deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
Environmentalists said they expected several states to fight the plan and denounced it as a giveaway to the oil and gas industries. Diane Hoskins, campaign director for the nonprofit group Oceana, called the blueprint “absolutely radical” and said the administration was also ignoring the opposition of the governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington. Finalizing the new plan could take as long as 18 months, experts said, and in the meantime challenges are expected in the courts and in Congress.
Mr. Zinke said he planned to speak with Governor Scott and other state leaders as well as members of Congress and “voices of communities” before the plan is finalized. In a joint statement, 64 environmental groups called the plan a “shameful giveaway” to oil companies. Many said they were exploring legal options.
“It’s not going to be done overnight,” Mr. Zinke said. Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, vowed to pursue “all legislative tools” to block drilling off the East Coast, including the Congressional Review Act, which allows agency actions to be undone by Congress. Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, said the state is “evaluating all of our options” to protect its coast. And, several groups warned, a future Democratic administration could again redraw the boundaries of allowable drilling.
Mr. Book noted that drilling in much of the newly opened areas, if it takes place, would not begin for years and that other states would likely move to protect their coastlines as well. But for now, Republicans’ efforts to roll back restrictions on energy production are winning the day. Last month Congress opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil and gas drilling as part of the tax overhaul. And last week the Interior Department rescinded an Obama-era rule that would have added regulations for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on federal and tribal lands. It also repealed offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the Deepwater Horizon spill.
“By the time they get to the final plan, many of the things that were possibilities are going to be on the cutting room floor,” he said. Jody Freeman, director of the environmental law program at Harvard Law School and a former Obama climate adviser, said the latest Trump proposal was more about sending a message. In the Arctic in particular, she said, low oil prices and the decision by Royal Dutch Shell to give up all but one of its federal oil leases indicate drilling is not on the near horizon.
“But the decision is a signal, just like the one Congress sent with ANWR, that Republicans want to open the nation’s public lands and waters for business,” she said.
Frank Knapp, president of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, said thousands of small businesses, from restaurants to hotels to commercial fishing operations, oppose drilling off their states’ waters.
“It’s not consistent with our vibrant tourism, fishing and recreation,” Mr. Knapp said. “Their concern is their livelihood, the local economies. We all saw what happened to the Gulf Coast with Deepwater Horizon.”
Of particular interest to oil companies — and concern to many Florida lawmakers — will be the decision to open the eastern Gulf of Mexico, said Kevin Book, an energy consultant and managing director of ClearView Energy Partners. He noted the area is attractive to the energy industry because there is already a large amount of infrastructure in the region.
“You can talk about the Atlantic all you want, but you’re 10 years, 15 years from production,” Mr. Book said.
Analysts said the oil industry was unlikely to rush headlong into new areas. While oil companies have eyed regions like the east coast of the United States for years, oil and gas operators are still smarting from the steep fall in oil prices that began in 2014 because of a global oil glut, which has only recently eased.
Despite the recent sharp rise in prices to about $68 a barrel for Brent crude, companies remain wary of spending, particularly in areas where the amount of oil and gas present is unknown and production is likely to be expensive without existing pipelines and other infrastructure.
“It is going to be a really long story,” said William Turner, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie in Houston. “It is not going to be gangbusters.”