The Trump administration plans to propose opening federal waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to offshore drilling, two people familiar with the plan said Wednesday, a move that is likely to antagonize coastal states governors — and make a direct jab at California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Full details of the plan were not yet known, but a push to bring drilling rigs to untouched sections of the U.S. coastline brought bipartisan opposition when Trump tried to carry out a similar plan during his first administration.
The proposal would be part of the Interior Department’s upcoming five-year plan on offshore oil lease sales, said the people who were granted anonymity because the plan wasn’t yet public.
The administration is expected to offer acres off the southern coast of California and “at least a small sliver” of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, one of the people said. It was unclear if that would include waters off Florida, where elected leaders of both parties have opposed drilling along their shoreline for decades because of the risk to the state’s tourism-based economy. Interior’s plan, a framework used to schedule offshore lease sales in federal waters for a five-year period, could change by the time the initial proposal becomes a finished product, this person said.
