Trump wants to lift offshore drilling restrictions
Some resistance.
President Donald Trump’s eraser is proving to be mightier than his predecessor’s pen. After jettisoning the Obama-era lax pot rules, his administration is looking to dump another Obama-era legacy by nixing the massive restrictions on offshore drilling.
The Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal Thursday to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department.
Under the proposal, only one of 26 planning areas in the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean would be off limits to oil and gas exploration, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. He said the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management has identified 47 potential areas where industry companies can buy leases between 2019 and 2024, when the proposed period would begin and end.
This announced permitting expansion program is still in draft form, so requesting a meeting with Zinke is a good idea at this early stage.
Governor Scott’s Statement on Trump Administration’s Plan on Offshore Oil Drilling: pic.twitter.com/iQqNU9afsQ
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 4, 2018
States, local communities, and congressional delegations will give input before the proposal becomes final in the coming months. The following tweet provides a map of the offshore areas currently proposed in the expansion.
With my crude photoshopping, this is Trump’s offshore drilling proposal. Green is open, red is closed, dark green is closed 2019-2022, open 2023-2024 pic.twitter.com/nhE84fNioo
— Timothy Cama (@Timothy_Cama) January 4, 2018
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke indicated that nearly all of the nation’s outer continental shelf is being considered for drilling, including areas off the coasts of Maine, California, Florida, and Alaska.
The proposal, which environmentalists immediately panned as an environmental disaster and giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, is far larger than what was envisioned in President Trump’s executive order last year seeking a new plan for the future of auctions of offshore drilling rights. That order asked Zinke to consider drilling expansions in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
“This is a start on looking at American energy dominance and looking at our offshore assets and beginning a dialogue of when, how, where and how fast those offshore assets should be, or could be, developed,” Zinke told reporters Thursday.
He contrasted it with former President Barack Obama’s most recent five-year plan for offshore drilling lease sales, which had no drilling around Alaska or in the Pacific or Atlantic oceans.
The green justice warriors are responding with the typical rhetoric, hyperbole, and predictions of doom.
“These ocean waters are not President Trump’s personal playground. They belong to all Americans and the public wants them preserved and protected, not sold off to multinational oil companies,” read the coalition’s statement, which was signed by leaders of the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.
Trump admin has the nerve to permit and open all offshore drilling. Okay, so when the ocean becomes fishless, as if it’s not already in danger, will the Republican Party finally realize environmental protection is needed? God please help us protect your land.
— Maria (@MarMarKinz) January 5, 2018
@POTUS How’s about we start right offshore from Mar-a-Lago then?
Trump administration proposes massive expansion of offshore drilling https://t.co/9jkvfb0kmU via @HuffPostPol— MadinCO (@IrishEyesinCO) January 5, 2018
ARMAGEDDON 2: Nancy Pelosi says Trump is LOOTING the PLANET through offshore drilling https://t.co/YbVyKY2mev via @twitchyteam
— R Hammerschmidt (@1Hammer) January 5, 2018
Being a Californian, perhaps my favorite theory on this move is this one:
Apparently offshore drilling is what California gets for voting for Hillary Clinton. Trump is a big believer in abusing his authority and punishing those who don’t support him or his agenda.
— HigherEd Lawyer (@TitleIX_Lawyer) January 5, 2018
I doubt that this move is payback for California’s #WarOnTrump, but it would be delicious if it were.
I say, “Drill, baby, drill.”
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Comments
What the fuck are liberals whinging about? Didn’t they all die in October 2016, then again in January 2017, and again when net neutrality was repealed and again when Americans were given a tax cut in December??
You know what, if these idiots keep dying they are going to run out of events and reasons to keep dying over. Actually…2024 is a long way away for these clowns so they will get lots of opportunities to die again and again and again over 🙂
They’re finding out the hard way that BECAUSE they oppose him so bitterly, and BECAUSE they shriek and howl at everything, including the supposed “news” of what he has for lunch, Trump is now free to do anything he wants, no matter how much it upsets them. What more can they do that they aren’t already doing? They’re already at 11 on the outrage scale.
Reminds me of an old pal who was married back when I was still single, we’d be out with a group of friends and the partying would go on into the wee hours of the morning, and we’d ask him “shouldn’t you be going home, isn’t your wife gonna be mad?” And he’d just say “well, she can only get so mad, and she’s already there, so it don’t matter what I do now, might as well have a good time.”
On a serious note. Let States that want to drill enjoy the benefits of increased employment and income while those that don’t allow drilling watch on with envy.
Agree with letting the States decide up to a point, but that point should be the 3 mile limit from the shoreline – beyond that, the responsibility is Federal, not State. Example – that dark green area on the map above, directly west of Florida, probably contains enough oil and gas to meet the entire nations demand for 30 or 40 years. (It’s got the same geology as the incredibly productive areas off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana) No way does Florida get to say “oh, we like tourists and we think oil is icky, so the rest of you can’t have it.”
Increasing the supply of oil and gas clearly worked to bring down the prices on the market despite the criticism of “Drill baby, drill!” It only took about another 4-5 million bbls a day to do it.
Trump and Congress should move to open up the frigid, coastal plain of ANWR to drilling to boost the North Slope and pipeline because production in northern AK has been in decline. We need discussion of how to get the natural gas out of the NS to the market. The importance is putting OPEC and the world on notice that more crude and gas can be put into production on short lead time.
Trump also needs to work toward a N. American Energy plan that included Canada and Mexico because they both play a role, although Canada is a really important one. We need to sell products and services to Mexico to modernize its production and perhaps have that crude sent to US refineries. Or sell equipment, hardware, and software to Mexico and Canada to refine more there. The electrical grid needs to be a part of the calculus as well, along with international transmission of electricity.
Then there is conservation of energy, in the home, industry, and in transportation. The US needs to think about incentives to make LEED certified homes more affordable, as well as retrofitting existing housing stock. Driving more and driving fast consumes more energy. Wasting a lot of food consumes more energy. And so on.
If it hurts OPEC that isn’t a bad thing.
I saw that some Saudi Princes were mad because they had to pay their utility bills. Awwww that sounds awful.
This week, the Saudis nearly doubled gas prices to like 37 cents a liter or about US$1.42 a gallon
“When the ocean becomes fishless.”
Uh-huh.
Six-year-olds.
OMG! We’re all gonna die! Again! Yes, fishes too!
Increased production by non-OPEC producers has had a definite effect.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/suparnadutt/2018/01/01/uae-and-saudi-arabia-end-tax-free-living-roll-out-5-vat-as-oil-revenue-slump/#3d64ecd92021
http://www.therepublic.com/2018/01/06/ml-saudi-economy-3/
Energy security should be everyones number 1 priority.
Over here in the UK we are essentially fucked because the greens gave ensured we are all slaves to Rissian gas.
You guys beed to protect yourselves from OPEC. Unliie Europe, America at leasr has a leader who understands the importance of energy security and isnt a slave of Mann Made Global Warming ™. For you there is at least hope!
Nearly 100% of this is exploratory. But that has been badly needed since 1973 when geologist declared that the Carolinas exhibited features that gave them potential but exploration was shut down instead of going ahead as planned.
How’s about we start right offshore from Mar-a-Lago then?
OK, how’s about it. Sounds fair to me. Let’s do that then, shall we? If we start right there will you agree to sit down and not object?
Heh. You know as well as I do that the Left will simply move the goalposts and whine louder.
If Trump put a drilling rig *in* Mar-a-Lago, the Left would whine about how much money he was going to make off the oil.
/this. A thousand times this.
Bad idea. The benefit to the economy must be evaluated with respect to all factors … which include the world supply, the environment, alternate energy sources, future need etc. I don’t wanna drill baby drill and 50 years later find that America needs oil but we’ve been bled dried of it and we have to rely on other countries for it. When the reserves depletes … I want America to have the biggest supply.
This exploratory involving some drilling and a lot of geological testing. These are not extraction licenses as the press and the hysterics pretend. This has long been necessary. Massive undersea natural petroleum leaks in CA need to be addressed. The Carolinas may have potential out a hundred miles off shore. New gas technology means a whole different kind of prospect. Is there coal under the Eastern Seaboard? Might very well be.
We’re not going to be “bled dry” – that’s a leftover bit of hyperbole from the “Peak Oil” sloganeers, who now have been totally discredited and have seen all their claims tossed into the trash heap of history.
The reason the enviro-left is so terrified of exploration is that the few intelligent ones among them realize that it’s going to show that we still have vast resources of oil and gas available – in terms of natural gas, we may easily have enough still in the ground to supply all of our electrical plants for the next 300 years. (at that point we’ll all have Mr. Fusion reactors on our cars) So no, we are NOT going to be “tapped dry” – we have just barely begun to develop what we’ve got.
I guess winning is bad.
We also need refineries.
Was going to post that very same thing.
We warned Democrats during the Obama administration this would happen. They need to be kicked in the teeth in order to learn their lesson.
The Marxists don’t want us to be energy independent. Go figure.