The Trump administration proposed to open drilling in the Atlantic and the Pacific and parts of the Arctic Coast where little to no drilling has occurred. It proposed to open more offshore areas to drilling despite the dangers posed to coastal economies and the fact that companies have drilled on only one-fifth of the 28 million acres already leased offshore. Congress abandoned its decades-long protection of the coastal region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening that pristine region, with only limited oil reserves, to drilling. The administration held a fire sale of leases offshore, costing the American public a potential fortune in terms of revenue while foreclosing other options for the use of public seas during the lease period. Not surprisingly, a number of state governments, some in the hands of Republicans, challenged drilling in federal waters off their coasts. Fears that offshore drilling might doom their election chances motivated the vast majority of Republican congressional representatives to request exemptions from Trump for their individual states. They chose not to exercise united congressional power to check the president’s actions, declining to support legislation that would have protected all states located on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts.

The expansion of offshore drilling to deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico and to more remote waters in the Arctic, as well as more intense hurricanes induced by climate change, have heightened risks of major well blowouts and oil spills. The Trump administration worsened these risks by rolling back regulations that had been enacted in response to the 2010 BP oil spill, the largest unintentional spill in the world (as of 2020), and to near misses during the 2013 Shell Arctic expedition. These rollbacks, plus poor government oversight of companies and scant attention to companies’ safety culture, risk a repeat of past oil spill disasters that devastated coastal communities. Members of the bipartisan commission that had investigated the spill reiterated its warnings in 2020 that another major oil spill is simply a matter of time and called for stronger laws governing offshore drilling. A number of congressional members did propose legislation to improve safety in offshore drilling. Unfortunately, despite the shifting tide against offshore drilling in coastal states, the majority of Republicans and those Democrats from states reliant on oil extraction failed to support these initiatives, putting at risk Americans’ lives, livelihoods, coasts and oceans.