The Trump administration announced plans Thursday to open new offshore drilling sites off the coasts of California and Florida for the first time in decades, proposing six new lease sales between 2027 and 2030 as part of a broader push to expand U.S. oil production.
The proposed plan
The five-year leasing plan includes six offshore lease sales through 2030 along the California coast. Off Florida’s shores, the administration proposes new drilling in areas at least 160 kilometers from the state’s coastline. The targeted zone sits adjacent to the Central Gulf of Mexico, an area already home to thousands of wells and hundreds of drilling platforms.
The plan also includes more than 20 lease sales off Alaska‘s coast, including a newly designated region known as the High Arctic, located over 320 kilometers offshore in the Arctic Ocean.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum acknowledged that oil from these parcels would take years to reach market. “By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Burgum stated.
The American Petroleum Institute described the plan as a “historic step” toward accessing vast offshore resources. Industry representatives have emphasized California’s history as an oil-producing state and its existing infrastructure to support expanded production.
Opposition from state leaders
Both California and Florida officials have opposed the drilling expansion. Florida Republican Senators Ashley Moodyand Rick Scott introduced legislation this month to maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling that Trump signed in his first term. Scott, a Trump ally who helped persuade officials to drop a similar offshore plan in 2018 when he was governor, said the state’s coasts “must remain off the table for oil drilling.”
A spokesman for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said the Trump administration should reconsider the plan. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic who often touts the state’s status as a global climate leader, called the administration’s plan “idiotic” and said California would “use every tool at our disposal to protect our coastline.”
California has restricted offshore oil drilling since the 1969 Santa Barbara spill, which helped launch the modern environmental movement. While no new federal leases have been offered since the mid-1980s, drilling from existing platforms continues. Newsom expressed support for greater offshore controls after a 2021 spill off Huntington Beach and has backed a congressional effort to ban new offshore drilling on the West Coast.
A Texas-based company, with support from the Trump administration, is seeking to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara damaged by a 2015 oil spill. The administration has hailed the plan by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp as the kind of project Trump wants to increase U.S. energy production.
The announcement coincided with Newsom’s attendance at the COP30 climate conference in Brazil. “He intentionally aligned that to the opening of COP,” Newsom said.
Congressional response
Lawmakers from California and Florida warned that new offshore drilling would hurt coastal economies, jeopardize national security, damage ecosystems, and put the health and safety of millions of people at risk.
“This is not just a little bit offshore drilling. This is the entire California coast, every inch of Alaska, even the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” said California Representative Jared Huffman. “Basically, everywhere Big Oil has been salivating to drill for decades.”
Representative Jimmy Patronis of Florida led a group of Republican lawmakers who asked Trump in a Thursday letter to withdraw some parcels off the Florida coast from leasing. They warned that oil exploration could interfere with a training area for nearby military airbases. Allowing the parcels to go forward “would have a chilling effect on the military’s ability to test new munitions, including hypersonic and counter drone weaponry,” they wrote.
The state is also still recovering from the environmental and economic havoc caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, which fouled coasts across the Gulf, said Florida Democratic Representative Kathy Castor.
A Santa Barbara group, the Environmental Defense Center, formed in response to the 1969 California spill, said the plan puts at risk the Santa Barbara Channel off Southern California, an important feeding ground for endangered blue, humpback, and fin whales.
“There is no way to drill for oil without causing devastating impacts,” said Maggie Hall, deputy chief counsel at the advocacy group. “The risk is unacceptable.”
Historical context
The federal government has not permitted drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995 due to oil spill concerns. California has maintained some offshore oil rigs, but federal waters have seen no new leasing since the mid-1980s.
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has reversed former President Joe Biden‘s climate-focused policies to pursue what he calls U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels including oil, coal, and natural gas.
The administration has simultaneously blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country. Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term to reverse Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.
