Lawmakers voice opposition of Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore oil drilling, cut regulations

Dozens of lawmakers penned their disdain to the interior secretary Tuesday for the Trump administration’s desire to expand offshore oil drilling.

The letter from 37 members of the U.S. Senate, which included support from Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., focused on the big picture of the plan that could put up 47 new leases of drilling in the Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, which they fear “would lock us into decades of carbon pollution, and endanger future generations and livelihood simply for short-term gain of major oil companies,” the letter read.

The draft of the 2019-24 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Jan. 4 caused immediate backlash from several Florida politicians, with U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, called “reckless.”

The 20 Florida representatives, led by Buchanan and Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., focused the House’s letter on the plan’s intent to cut back on regulations. Some of the rollbacks, the congressmen say, include “(reversing) a rule that called for more frequent testing of blowout preventers — the same device that failed in the Deepwater Horizon spill, which is intended to serve as a fail-safe against explosions in undersea oil and gas wells” and no longer require investigations into equipment failure be completed within 120 days, the letter read.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 11 people and spilled an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, leading to a costly cleanup and catastrophic effect on the Gulf Coast.

“Our constituents, which were severely impacted by the Deepwater Horizon spill, vehemently oppose any effort to weaken these common sense regulations, and increase the likelihood of another oil spill off the coast of Florida,” the House letter read. “We urge you to reject these ill-advised proposals.”

This story was originally published January 9, 2018 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Lawmakers voice opposition of Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore oil drilling, cut regulations."