So, how does Trump's move to drill offshore fit into this complicated energy puzzle? Certainly more domestic production is good for the economy and steady, predictable delivery of supplies. There is a gap between supply and demand, at least in peak times, as we transition away from our dependence on fossil fuel. The question is, how to fill it?
The primary goal of building a smarter, greener commercial base is to better balance economic development with environmental protection. Can we do this while drilling for oil and gas in the Artic? Based on prior history, probably not. We are simply increasing the odds of spills and destruction of our natural habitat.
The better solution is for Washington to marshal resources to cut energy use in half while growing all the latest smart technology to reach this goal--efficiency measures, including converting commercial offices to hybrid buildings; use of smart grid, micro grid, heavy investment in renewables and storage and investments in proven equipment like fuel cells that create lots of kilowatts without using a lot of fuel.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.
The proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental restrictions in an effort to promote energy production.
While the plan puts the administration squarely on the side of the energy industry and against environmental groups, it also puts the White House at odds with a number of coastal states that oppose offshore drilling. Some of those states are led by Republicans, like Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, where the tourism industry was hit hard by the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in 2010 that killed 11 people and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Governor Scott vowed on Thursday to protect his state’s coast from drilling, saying he would raise the issue with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
“I have asked to immediately meet with Secretary Zinke to discuss the concerns I have with this plan and the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration,” he said in a statement. “My top priority is to ensure that Florida’s natural resources are protected.”
The governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington have all opposed offshore drilling plans. Virginia’s governor-elect, Ralph S. Northam, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday that expanding drilling would jeopardize his state’s tourism and fishing industries, as well as military installations. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, also a Democrat, called drilling a “critical threat” to his state’s economy.
Mr. Zinke said the drilling plan was part of “a new path for energy dominance in America,” but said he planned to speak with Governor Scott and other state leaders before the proposal was finalized. “It’s not going to be done overnight,” he said.
Oil industry leaders cheered the reversal, calling it long overdue.
“I think the default should be that all of our offshore areas should be available,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance. “These are our lands. They’re taxpayer-owned and they should be made available.”
The Obama administration blocked drilling on about 94 percent of the outer continental shelf, the submerged offshore area between state coastal waters and the deep ocean. Mr. Zinke charged that those restrictions had cost the United States billions of dollars in lost revenue and said the new proposal would make about 90 percent of those waters available for leasing.
The Interior Department would open 25 of 26 regions of the outer continental shelf, leaving only the North Aleutian Basin — which President George Bush protected in an executive order — exempted from drilling.
Interior officials said they intended to hold 47 lease sales between 2019 and 2024, including 19 off the coast of Alaska and 12 in the Gulf of Mexico. Seven areas offered for new drilling would be in Pacific waters off California, where drilling has been off limits since a 1969 oil spill near Santa Barbara.
President Trump signed an executive order in April requiring the Interior Department to reconsider Mr. Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan, which had invoked an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to block new lease sales in large areas of the Arctic and Atlantic. The ban “deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
Finalizing the new plan could take as long as 18 months, experts said, and in the meantime challenges are expected in the courts and in Congress.
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