Trump plans to expand offshore drilling, Monterey Bay could be impacted

The Trump administration is moving to vastly expand offshore drilling from the Atlantic to the Arctic oceans, including opening up federal waters off the coast of California for the first time in more than three decades.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced a proposal Thursday to make more than 90 percent of the total outer continental shelf (OCS) acreage and over 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available for future exploration and development.

Zinke’s proposal ends a sweeping Obama-era ban that decreed most of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean would be indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing. Currently, around 94 percent of the OCS is off limits to drilling.

In Monterey, the proposal is troubling to Margaret Spring, the chief conservation officer with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She thinks the plan could have a huge impact on the tourism industry, which generates roughly $2.7 billion annually.

“That’s just for Monterey,” said Spring. “When you think about the entire coastline of California and how much tourism comes here to have any of that threatened by oil and gas transportation, drilling or spills is something we have to take very seriously as a state.”

The environmental group Oceana says the proposal could be a problem not only for the still recovering sea otter population but all wildlife.

According to the Trump administration, the plan would free the U.S. from being forced to buy ouil from enemies and would increase federal revenue by $15 billion. That’s a number Rob Bernosky with the California Republican Party is happy about.

“This goes hand in hand with reducing taxes, government regulations and decreasing the size of government,” said Bernosky.

A 60-day comment period will be opening up soon at BOEM.GOV