Trump plans to open almost all of coast to offshore drilling

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is readying a proposal to open almost all U.S. coastal waters to new offshore oil drilling despite opposition from state governors and the president’s previous efforts to close off some of the territory.

The draft plan for selling oil leases includes waters near the southeast U.S. that President Donald Trump tried to close off while campaigning for reelection five years ago, a nod to Republican allies worried about the risk of spills fouling beaches and their tourism-tied economies.

Documents detailing the expansive Interior Department proposal were reviewed by Bloomberg News. It isn’t clear that the drafted plans have been presented to Trump for his approval; they could change before they are published.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department said the agency won’t comment on deliberative information, but added that it “has been clear that there is a national energy emergency and all options to combat that crisis and win the AI race against China are on the table.”

While it’s likely a final sale schedule will be scaled back, the initial draft signals a potentially massive expansion in U.S. territory targeted for oil and gas leasing — including near coral reefs and Arctic waters environmentalists have said would be imperiled by drilling. Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history, the initiative underscores Trump’s commitment to expanding energy production beyond the long-developed Gulf of Mexico.

The draft, developed by Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, lays out the framework for possible auctions of oil and gas drilling rights in waters all along the U.S. East and West coasts, ringing Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Prohibitions on drilling would likely remain in protected areas such as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off Hawaii.

Environmentalists blasted the reported plan, saying it would put too many coastal communities and marine habitats at risk.

“President Trump would be ignoring the bipartisan voices of communities, business leaders, and elected officials around the country who oppose the expansion of offshore drilling,” said Joseph Gordon, a campaign director with the conservation group Oceana.

Oil companies have shown limited appetite to explore new U.S. waters far beyond the Gulf, where they could confront political opposition as well as geological risk. Relatively little is known about potential oil and gas along the East Coast, with most existing data tied to decades-old geological surveys and some four-dozen wells drilled in the 1970s and 1980s.

Even so, the Interior documents show there is “industry interest” in drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific. While oil companies have focused attention on the Gulf, the industry has broadly supported more access and opportunities.

The Interior Department’s draft is an initial step in assembling a new five-year blueprint for selling Outer Continental Shelf oil leases from 2026 to 2031. If finalized, it would replace a program developed under former President Joe Biden that scheduled just three auctions from 2024 to 2029.

The process typically begins with more auctions and available acreage put on the table than ends up in the final version, after being whittled down as regulators work toward the ultimate proposal. The plans also are subject to months and sometimes years of public and congressional scrutiny as they go through the revision process.

Some states have already registered their disinterest — and in some cases outright disapproval — of new offshore oil leases. Under federal law, Interior Department officials are supposed to consult with states and consider their views while developing the leasing plans.

However, no East Coast states told the Interior Department they wanted to be included in the plan, according to a document dated Sept. 17. Instead, Florida is registered as not having stated a position, and four states — Connecticut, Georgia, Virginia and New Hampshire — “did not respond,” the documents show. Eight states made their opposition explicit: Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

On the West Coast, California, Oregon and Washington were unified in opposing new leasing off their shores.

A similar effort in Trump’s first term was abandoned in the wake of fierce opposition from coastal states, particularly in Florida, where Republicans Rick Scott, now a senator, and Marco Rubio, now the U.S. secretary of state, respectively, criticized the plan.

It’s not clear this new bid will be any more successful. Republicans who’ve battled offshore wind farms over concerns that installing and operating turbines in the seabed will harm endangered whales could raise similar objections to industrial offshore oil development too.

Any new drilling in the U.S. Atlantic would be years away — following not just lease auctions but likely also fresh seismic surveys of the sea floor to help pinpoint possible underground pockets of oil and gas.

Trump himself appeared sympathetic to concerns about offshore oil development as he campaigned for reelection in 2020, when he invoked federal law to rule out the sale of new oil and gas rights near Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas through June 30, 2032.

Biden invoked the same statute in moving to block oil and gas development in most East and West coast waters his final weeks in office. Trump in January signed an order revoking the Biden-era ban.