Every Florida Congress member to Trump: Keep oil drilling away from our coast

Max Chesnes, Tampa Bay Times on Dec 5, 2025

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TAMPA, Fla. — In a rare display of unity, all 28 of Florida’s Congress members and both U.S. senators joined in a bipartisan letter Thursday urging President Donald Trump to keep offshore oil drilling away from the state’s coastline.

The response comes two weeks after the U.S. Department of the Interior unveiled a five-year proposal that would open the eastern Gulf of Mexico to new drilling leases. The plan drew swift condemnation across the political divide, from beachfront city halls to the chambers of Florida’s Capitol in Tallahassee.

Further strengthening a coalition against new Gulf drilling, Florida’s entire congressional delegation told Trump on Thursday that if the plan were to move forward, it would violate his 2020 executive order that protected the region from offshore oil.

The letter is significant in that it merges long-standing Republican and Democratic philosophies against Florida offshore drilling — that it could thwart Florida’s offshore military testing operations while also harming the state’s coastal economy dependent on healthy, biodiverse beaches — into a lockstep call for a course reversal.

“We urge you to uphold your existing moratorium and keep Florida’s coasts off the table for oil and gas leasing,” the lawmakers wrote. “Florida’s economy, environment, and military readiness depend on this commitment.”

The delegation reminded Trump of the devastation caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill: It wiped billions of dollars from a now-annual $127 billion tourism industry that employs more than 2 million people. It also caused “irreparable damage” to beach ecosystems and coastal communities, they said.

“The risks posed by new offshore drilling far outweigh any short-term gains,” the lawmakers wrote.

The federal leaders are aligned with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has also urged the Trump administration to uphold the 2020 moratorium barring the eastern Gulf from new oil leases through 2032. In early November, Sen. Rick Scott filed the American Shores Protection Act, which if passed would codify that drilling ban into law.

The Trump administration’s plan calls for auctioning two drilling leases beginning in 2029 in a region that has been traditionally off-limits to new drilling, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal. The petroleum industry was quick to praise the five-year leasing plan when it was announced two weeks ago. In a statement at the time, Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said the proposal was a “historic step toward unleashing our nation’s vast offshore resources.”

The region that could be opened for drilling leases is near a buffer roughly 100 miles offshore of Florida beaches. If any oil were to spill there, environmental advocacy groups fear, it could be pulled in the Gulf Stream current and spread across miles of beachfront.

The delegation said opening the eastern Gulf to offshore oil would reduce the training capabilities of facilities like Eglin Air Force Base, which uses about 123,000 square miles of open water for flight training and testing weapons.

Florida’s coastal advocacy groups over the past two weeks have also widened their opposition campaigns against the proposal, often highlighting the threat oil and gas drilling could pose to wildlife. The ocean advocacy group Oceana, for instance, has developed several maps overlaying the new drilling boundary with the known habitats of species like loggerhead sea turtles, endangered smalltooth sawfish and deep-sea corals and sponges.

One of the group’s maps paints a dire picture for the Rice’s whale, an endangered species with an estimated fewer than 100 individuals left in the wild. The proposed drilling expansion area is in the same sliver of the Gulf where the whales are known to live. The population saw a vast decline in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill 15 years ago.

“We are grateful the Florida Delegation has sent a letter to protect Florida’s communities, economy, waters, and shores from the perils of offshore oil drilling,” said Martha Collins, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group HealthyGulf.

She continued: “We hope this letter shows the Trump Administration how important it is to protect Florida’s economy and way of life from the terribly extractive and destructive practices of offshore oil and gas.”

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is accepting public comments on the drilling proposal until Jan. 23.

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