President Trump on Friday started the process of lifting former President Barack Obama’s restrictions on offshore drilling, signing an executive order that begins a review of all regulations preventing energy development at sea.
“We’re unleashing American energy and clearing the way for thousands and thousands of high-paying American energy jobs,” Trump said at the signing ceremony, flanked by members of the energy industry and lawmakers from coastal drilling states.
Obama restricted all development on the outer-continental shelf, except for roughly 6 percent, which “deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth,” Trump said.
“Renewed offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless new jobs and make America more secure and far more energy independent,” Trump said.
Today’s order is “another historic step toward … a real future with greater prosperity and security for all Americans, which is what we want,” Trump added.
The order directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to conduct a review of the current five-year development plan on the outer-continental shelf for offshore oil and gas exploration, as well as review the regulations and permitting process for development and seismic research.
The Obama administration had restricted offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic Ocean in its final five-year leasing program that begins this year. The decision was opposed as a step in the wrong direction by the energy industry, which has prodded the Trump administration to redo the plan.
“The order also directs the secretary of commerce to refrain from designating or expanding marine monuments and sanctuaries and conduct a review of all designations and expansions of sanctuaries and marine national monuments under the Antiquities Act that were designated or expanded within the last 10 years,” Zinke told reporters Thursday night.
Obama created or expanded a number of marine sanctuaries, including establishing one of the largest off the coast of Massachusetts, which would prohibit industry activities to protect marine life. Zinke said the review the commerce secretary will perform will be similar, although much less complicated, than the review the Interior Department will conduct under a separate order Trump signed this week. Commerce will have 180 days to complete its review and provide recommendations, he said.
A separate order signed this week directed Zinke to review all monument decisions made over the last 20 years and propose if the decisions should be rescinded, reversed or modified.
