The Interior Department confirmed all options are on the table when it comes to offshore oil drilling.
The Houston Chronicle reported on documents showing the Interior Department under Secretary Doug Burgum has proposals in the works to sell offshore oil drilling leases along the Atlantic Coast. The documents preserve a drilling ban off Florida but open most of the Atlantic Coast, including in Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
While the administration declined to address specifics of the draft documents reported on by the Texas newspaper, spokespeople provided a statement confirming further exploration has not been ruled out.
“We do not comment on leaked draft/deliberative information. With that said, the Department has been clear that there is a national energy emergency and all options to combat that crisis and win the AI race against China are on the table,” the statement reads.
Based on the Chronicle’s reporting, proposals in the works include opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the entire Atlantic Coast, outside Florida. Proposals all look at the Pacific Coast from Washington south through California, as well as portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea.
This would reverse some policies from President Donald Trump’s first term.
The plan as drafted would unveil expansions over the next few weeks, including some sale options in areas currently off limits
In September 2020, Trump signed an order extending a moratorium through June 2032 on offshore oil drilling off Florida’s Gulf Coast and from the Florida Keys north through South Carolina.
But Trump’s position on drilling, especially regarding Florida’s coasts, has shifted significantly since his first election as President in 2016. Trump’s Interior Department in 2018 proposed a similar expansion in drilling, but following instant bipartisan objections from Florida’s congressional delegation, Florida’s coast was quickly exempted.
Then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who now represents Florida in the U.S. Senate, met with administration officials then and said Florida did not want offshore drilling. That was a position maintained by current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, also a Florida Republican.
But other coastal governors, including then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, objected at the time to only Florida being exempted. He said he wanted to “have a word” with the Interior Department himself about Florida’s special status, as reported by NPR at the time. Shortly after, Northam signed legislation banning drilling in Virginia state waters. Northam’s successor, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, has not taken steps to reverse the ban.
In June, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, issued a joint statement asking the Trump administration to maintain an existing moratorium off the coasts of either state.
“Because of the significant risks associated with offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production off the Carolina coasts, every North Carolina and South Carolina coastal municipality has passed a resolution opposing offshore drilling and seismic testing,” that statement reads.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, promised when campaigning for office in 2019 to “fight” efforts to open Georgia shores to drilling, as reported by the Associated Press.
Oil companies have not been allowed to drill offshore anywhere along the Atlantic Coast since the early 1980s. Democratic President Barack Obama in March 2010 announced he would end that ban, as reported by NPR, but just a month later, the Deepwater Horizon explosion prompted him to reissue a short-term ban and later issue a five-year ban on offshore oil drilling leases altogether.
