Nature lovers, scientists and politicians worry the beloved California coastline, from the Redwoods to Santa Monica, will be endangered by the Trump administration's latest call for expanded offshore drilling.
While oil and gas industry leaders lauded the plan, environmentalists and a group of California legislators quickly blasted it, fearing the potential havoc an oil spill or other accident could wreak on tourism and natural resources along the coast. They say the millions of tourists and residents who visit the scenic locations contribute tens of billions to the state's coastal economy.
The worries extend far beyond California, to Florida’s beachfront economy and to remote and protected wilderness areas in Alaska.
The program unveiled Thursday, Nov. 20, by the Department of the Interior calls for expansion of drilling and lease sales across more than 1.2 billion acres of ocean off California, Alaska and the Gulf states. It proposes as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales, including in waters that were previously protected.
“With this draft plan, Donald Trump and his administration are trying to destroy one of the most valuable, most protected coastlines in the world and hand it over to the fossil fuel industry,” said two California Democrats, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-California, in a joint statement.
