offshore rig

The Trump administration’s five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leases would make nearly all offshore waters open to drilling interests.

The “draft offshore leasing plan continues the Trump administration’s all-out assault on public lands and waters,” said Trim Van Noppen of Earthjustice. “The plan proposes to expand offshore oil drilling everywhere, including in our most sensitive waters. It puts irreplaceable wildlife and coastal communities at risk for the sole benefit of Big Oil, and it takes us in exactly the wrong direction on the urgently needed transition to a clean energy future.”

A year into his presidency, the president was moving to undo yet another policy of the Obama administration that protects the environment.

The current lease plan was finalized by President Barack Obama's administration in November 2016, excluding the Atlantic coast and nearly the entire Arctic Ocean. Following the release of the plan and in response to calls from millions of Americans, Obama used his authority designated by Section 12a of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently protect parts of the Arctic and Atlantic from offshore drilling.

“The Trump administration’s plan to roll back these protections is reckless and untenable,” said Kate Addleson, director of the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the specifics of the Trump plan Jan. 4. Beginning in 2019, the Interior Department would vastly expand lease sales and open currently protected parts of the outer continental shelf along the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific coasts to exploitation by the fossil fuel industry.

Addleson said the plan lacks any basis in science, employs faulty economics and blatantly disregards the flood of public opinion against expanding offshore drilling.

“For over 30 years there has been a ban on drilling off our coast, and for good reason,” said the Virginia activist. “A healthy, biodiverse environment is the lifeblood of our vibrant coastal economy, which depends entirely on clean beaches and ocean waters to sustain multi-billion dollar a year tourism, fishing and aquaculture industries that employs tens of thousands.”

David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, observed there are places where offshore drilling already occurs. “Let’s make the smart choice to limit drilling to those places and not to take dumb risks like drilling in the Arctic or off coasts that rely on tourism,” he said.

The five-year proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period. 

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