PoliticoPro: More than 100 congressional Dems oppose expanded offshore oil and gas leasing
By Noah Baustin
A broad coalition of congressional Democrats sent a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday opposing his administration’s plan to expand offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters.
What happened: The letter from 109 Democrats, led by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), opposes any effort to open new offshore oil and gas leasing in the federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in the Arctic Ocean and northern Bering Sea off of Alaska, and in the Eastern Gulf.
“Expanded oil and gas leasing poses risks to the health and livelihoods of our constituents, jeopardizes our tourism, fishing, and recreation economies, and threatens the marine life that inhabits our coastline,” the legislators wrote in the letter to Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, shared exclusively with POLITICO.
Why it matters: Even as legislators across the country grapple with energy affordability issues, pressuring prominent Democratic leaders like Gavin Newsom to soften their stance on the oil industry, the broad coalition signing onto the letter illustrates that offshore drilling remains a line few are willing to cross.
Context: The news broke last week that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is poised to propose opening up new oil and gas lease sales off the coast of California, as well as the Atlantic seaboard, for the first time in a generation. The revelation sparked swift condemnation in Congress, including from Trump-allied coastal Republicans.
BOEM started taking public comment in May on its plan to prepare the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing program. It will replace the Biden-era program, which was previously set to run through 2029. The agency said that the development of a new program was key to implementing Trump’s day-one executive order that declared it U.S. policy to “encourage energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters, including on the Outer Continental Shelf, in order to meet the needs of our citizens and solidify the United States as a global energy leader long into the future.”
What’s next: The Trump administration is expected to formally announce its draft proposed National Outer Continental Shelf leasing program in the next several weeks, according to two sources POLITICO granted anonymity to discuss upcoming plans. Once it does, officials will develop a proposed program, followed by a proposed final program.
Read the full article here.