President Trump on Friday will sign an executive order on opening up the U.S. coasts to more offshore drilling while reviewing a number of former President Barack Obama’s marine monument and sanctuary approvals seen as barriers to offshore energy development.
The Executive Order Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy directs the Interior Department to begin a review of restrictive drilling policies for the outer-continental shelf, while reviewing regulations and the Obama administration’s actions.
“President Trump will continue on the success of his first 100 days in office” by signing the order, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters on a call Thursday night. “The order directs me, as secretary of the Interior, 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.
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.
Currently, “94 percent of the [outer-continental shelf] is off limits for possible development of any type,” he said. The review is not exclusively looking at oil and natural gas production, but also will consider offshore wind energy development. Zinke said he talked to a number of lawmakers from the East Coast that are “optimistic” for offshore wind, adding that he too, is optimistic that wind resources have a future at sea.
Zinke said the current plan for years 2017-2022 under Obama is in place and the president’s order would not change it until the review is over.
Conservation groups almost immediately decried the executive order as a “huge, bad, stupid mistake,” according to Jacqueline Savitz with the group Oceana.
“Seven years, almost to the day, after offshore drilling caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, President Trump is taking aim at expanding this dirty and dangerous industry into new areas like the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans, as well as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico,” Savitz said. “I doubt President Trump would want to see Mar-a-Lago, or any of his other coastal resorts, covered in oil.”
