More US states looking to protect shores from Trump’s offshore drilling

Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse and congressman Seth Magaziner are leading a bipartisan group of senators to ban offshore drilling along the coast of New England.

New England consists of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. All of the states have representatives supporting the bill except Vermont.

The New England drilling ban is supported by Maine representatives Susan Collins and Angus King, Massachusetts representative Elizabeth Warren, and Connecticut representatives Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy.

New Hampshire representatives Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen are also supporting the so-called New England Coastal Protection Act, as well as the entire Rhode Island congressional delegation.

“With president Trump scrambling to grant the looters and polluters swarming around his administration every item on their wish list, I’m committed to doing everything in my power to stop reckless oil and gas drilling off Rhode Island’s coast,” said Whitehouse, who originally introduced the legislation during the first Trump administration. 

According to NOAA Fisheries data provided in the statement from the senators, ocean and coastal industries, including tourism, fishing, and recreation, generate more than $17.5bn in New England annually.

They claimed in the statement that expanding drilling in the Atlantic would harm New England’s key industries and significantly increase the chance of environmental disaster in the region.

Along with New England states, Democratic Party Representative Salud Carbajal has reintroduced the California Clean Coast Act into the US Congress, which would permanently ban future offshore oil and gas leasing in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California.

Another pair of bills is also looking to permanently block oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. One bill was introduced by Alex Padilla, while the other was introduced by Cory Booker and Jack Reed.

Padilla’s bill would permanently prohibit new oil and gas leases for offshore drilling off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington state. The Booker and Reed bill would permanently bar the Interior Department or any of its agencies from issuing leases for the exploration, development, or production of oil and gas in the North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida Planning Areas of the US Outer Continental Shelf.