When President Trump proposed opening nearly the entire U.S. coastline to more offshore oil and gas drilling, the backlash from states seeking exemptions was swift.
But, Trump has been quietly laying the groundwork to weaken a decades-old federal law that has empowered Florida and other states to stop offshore development in federal waters.
“Republicans are always supposed to be in favor of states’ rights,” said Richard Charter, who has worked on oil issues for 40 years and is a senior fellow at the marine conservation nonprofit Ocean Foundation. “But this is in fact an effort to take away states’ rights when it comes to offshore drilling.”
The Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asked the public to weigh in on ways to “streamline” a state review process granted under the Coastal Zone Management Act. The 1972 law is widely considered one of the most powerful tools states have to regulate activity off their coasts. It applies to all of the coastal and Great Lakes states, with the exception of Alaska.
The scientific agency can’t change the law, but through regulation and implementation, it can have a major impact on how it is enforced. Among other things, the administration appears to be considering limits to the scope of states’ review powers and a shorter period of time to process an appeal. The full extent of its plans is unclear.
Florida politicians who secured the Interior Department’s promise a year ago to exempt the state from new offshore drilling were scrambling to figure out whether the administration would honor it.
Florida’s entire congressional delegation signed a letter last month asking to be left out of Trump’s offshore drilling plan.
We've run out of other people's Social Security taxes needed to subsidize our low income tax rates.
