Less than a week after the Trump Administration proposed to open nearly the entire USA coast to oil and gas drilling, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke backtracked and took Florida off the table for offshore oil and gas exploration.
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Zinke declared he would dial back a proposal to auction drilling rights in as much as 90 per cent of US coastal waters less than a week after the plan was unveiled.
“The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) clearly outlines a deliberative, inclusive and lengthy review process before any preliminary leasing proposals are finalized”. He infamously banned state officials from using the term “climate change” (he denies this, but come on), takes gobs of money from the pollution-heavy Florida sugar industry, had an extremely questionable financial stake in the Sabal Trail oil pipeline, and in 2016 rewrote state rules to let polluters dump more known carcinogens into state waterways.
As for Republican opponents, many are governors of coastal states who share concerns about the damage major spills can do. Bill Nelson – wasn’t entirely happy with Tuesday’s announcement. “And I can tell you Florida is well served”.
And in a video interview for “Anderson Cooper 360”, the OR governor expressed incredulity over Zinke’s claims that Florida’s coastline was unique for its dependence on tourism. That conversation led to his decision to remove “Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms”, Zinke announced Tuesday evening.
But then, after Scott lobbied against the move, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Tuesday he was removing Florida’s coastal waters from consideration for future offshore oil drilling. This is going to be at least a year with public comment.
“By opening these areas to drilling, the Trump administration will be acting counter to the best available science-and the will of coastal communities”, said Drew Ball of Environment NC.
President Randall Luthi issued the following statement on Secretary Zinke’s recent announcement regarding Florida offshore waters.
Scott last week announced his opposition to the drilling plan and said he had asked to meet with Zinke. Environment North Carolina denounced the plan, which would open vast new areas of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. “We can’t do drilling until we do it safely”, Scott told CNN in 2010. We need to support the billions of dollars in economic activity, the tens of thousands of jobs and the thousands of businesses that rely upon a safe and clean shoreline.
“Really the bottom line for OR is offshore drilling is pretty unlikely”.
But drilling off the OR coast may not yield much, if previous reports are any indication.
“I will no doubt talk to every governor”, Zinke said.
Carter, Isakson and several other Georgia Republicans signed onto House and Senate letters to Zinke last summer – when the administration’s previous offshore leasing program was limited to the Gulf of Mexico and a small area off the coast of Alaska – encouraging him to “carefully review” other areas of the country “to ensure that opportunities are not missed”.
Brown is far from the only OR politician to call out the Trump administration since Zinke’s announcement.
The plan to exempt Florida from offshore drilling also sparked outcry from other state lawmakers opposed to offshore drilling.
“New York doesn’t want drilling off our coast either”, tweeted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday continued her fight to keep OR offshore areas free of oil drilling. “He is a straightforward leader that can be trusted”, Zinke wrote in a statement attached to a 6:48 p.m. tweet. Florida is at risk for offshore drilling because the Trump administration chose to put it at risk.
