The Trump Administration just announced plans to open nearly all U.S. waters to oil drilling leases, including new offshore leases off of the California coast. The proposal outlines six lease sales in areas along the California coast between 2027 and 2030, Offshore Technology reports.
California Governor Gavin Newsom immediately responded that Trump’s proposal is “dead on arrival,” doubling down on California’s business-killing climate change policies, which don’t include oil.
The plan is “dead on arrival in California — dead on arrival,” Newsom told reporters at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Bloomberg News reported. It’s “interesting he didn’t put it in front of Mar-a-Lago,” Newsom added, referring to Trump’s Florida resort. “It’s disgraceful.”
The Trump administration is also is preparing to outline potential sales of drilling rights in waters near Alaska and in the Gulf of America, according to a draft five-year plan seen by the Washington Post.
Offshore Technology reports:
In June, ten oil and energy organisations led by the American Petroleum Institute submitted a joint letter.
This letter defended the prospect of new drilling near California and indicated the region’s history of oil production from leases issued more than half a century ago.
It read: “All areas with the potential to generate jobs, new revenue and additional production to advance America’s energy dominance should be considered for inclusion.
“Undiscovered resources could be readily produced given the array of existing infrastructure in the area, particularly in southern California,” the letter added.
Industry representatives also supported drilling in the eastern Gulf, noting that proximity to developed areas could enable “new production relatively quickly”.
However, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with attorneys general from nine other states, has pledged to resist offshore oil drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
In June, Bonta said, “President Trump is once again taking action to line the pockets of his Big Oil friends. This time, he is expanding oil and gas development by attempting to drill in our coastal communities. We won’t stand idly by as the President continues to ignore science.”
As the Globe reported in April, a report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) Institute for Applied Economics – Oil and Gas in California: The Industry, its Economic Contribution and Major User Industries – found:
California’s oil and gas industry provides 536,770 total jobs in California and 148,140 Californians are directly employed by its individual companies—along with the $338 billion total economic contribution to California’s economy. Those numbers are something we all should feel proud of.
The U.S. has retaken the lead in global oil production, no thanks to California.
It’s a stark contrast and gross negligence that Governor Newsom isn’t going full steam ahead on California’s fracking and horizontal drilling – oil and gas extraction, which has been safely used in the U.S. since 1947. “More than 17 million U.S. wells have been completed using the fracking process, producing more than seven billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,” the Independent Petroleum Association of America states.
Remember Newsom’s climate grift:
Gov. Newsom signed a package of “sweeping legislation” in September 2022 to achieve statewide carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2045, by establishing an 85% emissions reduction target, capping oil wells, slowing oil and gas permitting, making it impossible to increase refining capacity, and entirely phasing out oil and gas starting in two years.
That “sweeping set of laws” Newsom touted was 40 new climate change bills regulating California businesses and its people.
At the UN climate summit in Brazil, “Gov. Newsom urged nations to hold firm against further intimidation efforts, saying it was vital to remember ‘Trump is temporary’ and that ‘you stand up to a bully,'” Yahoo News reported.
“The well-coiffed Democrat — seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate — blasted Trump for twice leaving the Paris climate accord and for “doubling down on stupid through his support of Big Oil.”
Newsom said a future Democratic administration would rejoin the Paris Agreement “without hesitation.”
Notably, President Donald Trump skipped the UN’s climate summit while California’s Governor “grabbed the spotlight,” Yahoo News also reported about the “well-coiffed Democrat.”