Florida may not be ‘off the table’ for oil drilling after all, Trump official says

The acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management popped a hole in what many thought to be Florida’s official removal from consideration for expanded offshore oil drilling.

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., Friday morning, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., asked director Walter Cruickshank why only Florida was taken “off the table” and not other coastal states. He responded by saying U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s statement “stands for itself.”

“We have no formal decision yet on what’s in or out on the five-year program,” said Cruickshank, who has held his position since 2002.

This comes 10 days after Zinke and Gov. Rick Scott met briefly at Tallahassee International Airport to say that the Sunshine State would not be considered as part of the Trump administration’s plan to renew oil and gas exploration and open up 47 additional leases, including in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, from 2019 to 2024. The Gulf of Mexico has a moratorium on oil drilling that expires in 2022.

Huffman hammered why Florida was so “special” in getting this exemption, but Cruickshank apparently wasn’t giving the congressman a straight answer. The acting director said that all of the states would be treated the same. Several leaders of coastal states — including South Carolina, Maryland, Georgia and California — have pondered why only Florida was given this special consideration.

Cruickshank further detailed to U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., that the department is following protocol of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and “all areas of the draft proposal” would be analyzed. When asked if Zinke’s tweet about Florida being no longer in consideration was premature, the acting director stated, “We are following the process and the secretary’s decision will be reflected in the proposed program decision.”

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and other Florida politicians have been vocal about the administration’s plan. Nelson has been critical of the publicized meeting between Zinke and Scott, said that this week he put a “hold” on three Interior nominees who would work under Zinke.

“This confirms what we all suspected: There is no deal to protect Florida from drilling,” Nelson said in a statement. “What we saw last week was just political theater, and the people of Florida should be outraged. Drilling off of Florida’s coast is a real threat to our state, and we should all be working together to protect our coasts — not playing politics with an issue that’s so important to our future.”

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, has previously called the plan “reckless.”

Many have pointed to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 and spilling an estimated 210 million gallons of oil.

"“The confusion over whether Florida’s coastlines are off the table is why Congress needs to pass my bill extending the ban on drilling,” Buchanan said in a statement about Cruickshank's comment. “The current administration and future administrations can easily change regulations, but it’s much more difficult to overturn a law.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 1:37 PM with the headline "Florida may not be ‘off the table’ for oil drilling after all, Trump official says."