Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to open up much of the nation’s coastline to new oil and gas development.
Now, the Washington Post and the New York Times are reporting that the Trump Administration will push to open the California Coast to new oil and gas exploration. The Times is reporting the proposal could come as soon as this week.
The report stated that lease sales in the state would be conducted off the Santa Barbara County coastline.
The reports aren’t a surprise for environmental groups, which have been expecting the move from the administration.
"We've been monitoring the situation, and we submitted extensive comments during the early stage of this process, and we requested that the Pacific region be excluded from any new leasing," said Maggie Hall, Deputy Chief Counsel for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.
"If this plan were to go forward, this would be the first time that new oil leases were issued in California since 1984, when Ronald Reagan was President."
Hall said they don’t know what the specifics are of a potential Trump Administration lease plan. "At this point, we have not seen any of the specifics about what areas of the coast would likely be on the table."
The state controls the waters within three miles of the coastline. Past the three-mile mark, the ocean is federally regulated.
That’s where most of the oil platforms off the coastline in the Tri-Counties have been located. It includes what was Union Oil’s Platform A, about six miles off the coast of Summerland. That’s the platform that had a blowout in 1969, causing a three- to four-million-gallon oil spill, which helped spark the modern environmental movement.
Hall said that traditionally, a primary environmental review process is conducted for new leasing. But the fear is that the Trump Administration will try to bypass the review.
"Previous administrations have always done an environmental review process when they issue these five-year leasing programs," said Hall. "We've already heard that the Trump Administration is not planning to do that environmental review process. It's deeply concerning."
If the Trump Administration pursues the proposal, Hall said there will be numerous legal challenges. "President Biden issued an Executive Order that prohibits oil leasing off the coast of California, so this draft plan would be in violation of that order. There's also specific protections for National Marine Sanctuaries that prohibit the development of new leases, so any new leases in sanctuaries would be unlawful."
Even if the door to new leases were opened, oil companies would have to figure out how to move the oil to refineries. The state has restrictions that ban the creation of new facilities in state waters to move the oil onshore.
With California's stringent oil industry regulations, there's also the question of whether companies would want to undertake the lengthy and expensive process of obtaining permits.
Hall admitted it’s a frustrating situation. She said the state and the region have made it clear they don’t want new oil and gas development.
"The Trump Administration hasn't really respected California's concerns, saying that we don't want more," said the EDC attorney.
The administration's proposal has no connection to the ongoing controversy involving Sable Offshore Corporation’s efforts to repair and restart the oil pipeline, which ruptured on the Gaviota Coast in 2015.
Sable needs the pipeline to move oil from three oil platforms off the coast, which have been idle since the 2015 accident. The state fire marshal’s office has to make a decision on whether the pipeline can be reactivated. There are also several legal disputes associated with the Sable project.
As for the Trump Administration's plan to open the door to new leases, we could know in the next few days if the Department of the Interior is ready to make the plan public.
