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The Trump administration is planning to allow oil and gas drilling off the California coast for the first time in decades, according to a draft plan shared with the Washington Post.
The move is guaranteed to set up a battle with the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a staunch opponent of offshore drilling.
The plan would include six offshore lease sales between 2027 and 2030 along the California coast, as well as the expansion of drilling into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America. Drilling has typically been avoided in the area due to fears from Florida Democrats and Republicans around beach pollution and an overall negative impact on tourism.
Newsom rebuked the proposal while attending the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, which the Trump administration chose to skip, breaking with precedent. The California governor told reporters that the plan to restart drilling off the coast would be “dead on arrival” in California.
It’s not clear how interested the oil and gas industry will be in lease auctions for drilling off California; leases in the Gulf off Louisiana and Texas are expected to be of more interest because of proximity to existing support infrastructure.
There has been limited drilling and no new leasing on the Pacific Coast since the 1980s, in large part due to a catastrophic oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969, which spurred the first Earth Day and jumpstarted the national environmental movement.
“The federal government’s offshore oil drilling plan will damage coastlines and communities, while threatening coastal recreation and tourism industries that contribute billions of dollars to our nation’s economy,” Pete Stauffer, ocean protection manager of the Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to ocean conservation, said.
“Offshore drilling is highly unpopular across the country and will increase the likelihood of yet another destructive oil spill off our coasts. Surfrider Foundation’s chapter network will fight this proposal vigorously to protect all US coastlines from the unnecessary risks involved with new offshore drilling.”
The interior department did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
