Florida’s Republican senators are leading a bipartisan push to get the Trump administration to remove their state’s waters from its proposed offshore leasing map.
Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody led Florida’s 28 other members of Congress in a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday urging the administration to change course, marking the most visible Republican rebuke yet of the Interior Department’s proposed 5-year leasing schedule.
The lawmakers — 22 Republicans and eight Democrats — are arguing that drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, also known as the Gulf of America, could damage Florida’s environment, threaten its tourist economy and encroach on military training areas.
The first Trump administration enacted a moratorium on drilling in the eastern Gulf through 2032 after similar pushback from Florida lawmakers.
