Washington Post: Military officials are worried about Trump’s oil drilling plan. Here’s why.
By Jake Spring
If the United States went to war in the South China Sea, there would be no better place to simulate it than America’s southeastern coast.
The U.S. coastline along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean nearly matches up to China’s — minus the Florida Peninsula — with island nations dotting both waters. The region acts as a training zone, allowing troops to deploy from Virginia toward the Gulf, similar to how they would launch from bases in Japan to travel south toward a potential enemy. There are hundreds of open miles for Tomahawk missiles and other weapons to be tested before they are used in combat.
But that critical training ground could soon be at risk. Military leaders and bipartisan lawmakers say a Trump administration plan to allow oil platforms in an empty expanse of the Gulf of Mexico and off of Southern California would obstruct some of the largest military operations areas in the country.
Now this group — which includes Florida’s entire 30-member congressional delegation — is scrambling to overhaul the administration’s five-year leasing plan before it’s finalized in October.
“It’s almost strategically backwards,” said Rick Miller, a retired Navy captain and vice chair of the Florida Defense Alliance, a state advisory body. “For a modest potential increase in oil production capacity, we’d be giving up a tremendous amount of national defense capability.”
Last year, the Interior Department issued its draft plan for when and where it would auction offshore oil and gas leases, proposing to expand drilling into a part of the Gulf nearer to Florida in 2029 as well as the entire California coast in 2027, where no new drilling has taken place in more than 50 years.
The plan drew immediate backlash from politicians in California and Florida who feared oil spills that would affect communities reliant on tourism and fishing, while the oil industry has defended the plan.
But retired military leaders and armed forces advocacy groups say an overlooked concern is the overlap between areas of drilling expansion and military test and training zones off the coast of both states — something that concerns both Republicans and Democrats. The U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard all use at least one range off of California or in the Gulf, and at least two dozen military bases rely on them in some capacity.
Interior is expected to release its second draft of the plan in the coming weeks and will take public comment before the department aims to issue a final version by October. At any stage, Interior could revise what areas are included.
“No final decisions have been made,” Interior spokeswoman Elizabeth Peace said in a statement. “The proposal simply identifies the areas that remain under consideration as analysis continues.”
Interior is coordinating “with the Department of War to ensure that offshore energy activities and military operations can coexist,” Peace added.
Florida’s congressional delegation, led by GOP Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, wrote President Donald Trump in December that they oppose “any attempts to expand offshore oil and gas drilling off Florida’s coasts.”
“The Gulf Test Range is the largest multi-domain military training and testing complex in the country, and its unique geographic characteristics enable critical preparation for real-world contingencies,” the letter said.
In a statement, Scott said that while he supports Trump’s efforts to boost American energy production, he “totally” opposes drilling off Florida’s coast.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and state lawmakers have also objected to any oil expansion off of their state. In a joint letter, Newsom and the governors of Oregon and Washington wrote that a major spill could affect “military operations” as well as fishing, shipping and tourism.
“We’ll do anything and everything we can to stop it,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California).
The oil industry has defended Interior’s plans in the Gulf.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobby group, sees the expansion into that portion of the eastern Gulf — which it calls the “South-Central Gulf of America” — as one of the “most promising regions for domestic energy production,” said Dustin Meyer, its senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs.
“Our industry has a long history of operating safely alongside our neighbors in the Gulf, and we will continue to work with the administration to ensure we can meet both our national security and energy security goals in the Gulf of America,” he said in a statement.
The offshore expansion is part of Trump’s efforts to produce more oil and gas in the U.S., after declaring a national emergency on his first day in office on the grounds that inadequate domestic energy sources threaten national security. The administration has sought to boost fossil fuel production, while curbing solar and wind power.
“The administration can’t have it both ways,” Padilla said. “They can’t argue national security concerns when it comes to wind energy and ignore them for their proposed offshore oil drilling.”
How the military training zones are used
Four retired military leaders described the ranges off Florida and California as some of the last places in the U.S. where they can conduct a variety of key exercises.
Maj. Gen. H.D. Polumbo, a former fighter pilot who retired from Air Force leadership in 2015, said they would regularly test weapons in the Eastern Gulf Test and Training Range, an open square of ocean roughly 500 miles across. He described shooting missiles at unmanned aircraft.
“It’s like a car wreck, both going 100 miles an hour. That’s a pretty heck of an explosion, even though there’s no warheads,” he said.
New weapons need to be tested before they are incorporated into the U.S. arsenal, and that means finding big open areas to fire them at their maximum range, he said.
“If the missile went haywire and it turned 90 degrees to the left and went 50 miles left, I needed to make sure I could guarantee nobody would get hurt,” said Polumbo, who also has flown in Southern California military areas.
“Every day, we shoot missiles out there and somebody in the air is responsible for saying that we have a clear area for a 50-pound piece of metal to fall into the sea.”
Modern fighter planes need 200 to 500 miles for training tactics and procedures, said Maj. Gen. Richard Haddad, a retired Air Force pilot and commander, who flew gunships out of the special ops base at Hurlburt Field on the Florida Panhandle.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark A. Massaro, current commander of the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base in Okaloosa County, outlined in a December letter that the range in the eastern Gulf is critical to missile and aircraft testing, drone operations, and explosive disposal. It’s one of the only places in the U.S. where hypersonic weapons can be tested.
“This essential resource, however, faces increasing encroachment concerns that threaten military readiness,” Massaro wrote.
While Massaro did not address oil specifically, he wrote that any encroachment past what is known as the Military Mission Line would compromise operational capabilities. Congress in the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act blocked oil development from expanding past that mission line into the eastern Gulf closer to Florida, but it expired in 2022.
Both areas off of California and Florida are open to civilian boats and planes, with the area off the coast of Southern California particularly busy with commercial shipping and flights. But the military can tell them to steer clear if it needs to use the areas, said Vice Adm. Jody Breckenridge, a retired Coast Guard leader and chair of the California Governor’s Military Council.
Permanent oil platforms cannot be moved for military exercises, which would need to go around them, she said.
The California offshore military areas are similarly used for training and weapons testing like the Gulf range, with the Space Force also using it from its Vandenberg base, Breckenridge said. Unlike in Florida, troops in California can practice combat situations transitioning from water into the mountains, she added.
“These are becoming more and more one of a kind, and we have what we have. Once you give that up you’re never going to get it back,” Breckenridge said. “And then what does that mean to having a trained and ready military?”
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