The Pacific Ocean runs up along the beach on the California coast at Jenner.
Large waves break along the California coast, where lawmakers and residents fear the impacts of a Trump administration proposal to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.
The exterior of the Monterey Bay Aquarium seen from the wild kelp forests in Monterey Bay. Photo by Patrick Webster.

Nature lovers, scientists and politicians worry the beloved California coastline, from the Redwoods to Santa Monica, will be endangered by the Trump administration's latest call for expanded offshore drilling.

While oil and gas industry leaders lauded the plan, environmentalists and a group of California legislators quickly blasted it, fearing the potential havoc an oil spill or other accident could wreak on tourism and natural resources along the coast. They say the millions of tourists and residents who visit the scenic locations contribute tens of billions to the state's coastal economy.

The worries extend far beyond California, to Florida’s beachfront economy and to remote and protected wilderness areas in Alaska.

The program unveiled Thursday, Nov. 20, by the Department of the Interior calls for expansion of drilling and lease sales across more than 1.2 billion acres of ocean off California, Alaska and the Gulf states. It proposes as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales, including in waters that were previously protected.

“With this draft plan, Donald Trump and his administration are trying to destroy one of the most valuable, most protected coastlines in the world and hand it over to the fossil fuel industry,” said two California Democrats, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-California, in a joint statement.

Coastal communities, and their multi-billion-dollar economies, rely on healthy oceans to survive, said Joseph Gordon, a campaign director with Oceana, an ocean conservation organization.

But oil and gas industry supporters applauded the announcement, listing its potential benefits to the nation’s energy resources and economy.

Frank Maisano, an expert who represents oil, gas and renewable industries, said “a predictable leasing program allows companies to plan and invest in best-in-class systems, ensuring that offshore development moves forward with the highest levels of safety, environmental stewardship, and community engagement.”

Maisano added robust offshore oil and natural gas development could generate over $8 billion in additional government revenue by 2040.

In a news release from the Department of Interior, Jarrod Agen, executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, said by putting "a real leasing plan back on track, we’re restoring energy security, protecting American jobs, and strengthening the nation’s ability to lead on energy for decades to come."

California concerns about oil spills

The economic win for some industries could be costly to others. Offshore drilling would undermine California’s tourism industry, one of the biggest globally, said Richard Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at the University of California, Davis.

“The economic value of having a clean and robust environment that encourages visitors to come from all over world, is considered priceless compared to the financial benefits if certain areas were in oil and gas development," Frank said.

More than 150 million visitors a year frequent the state’s coast, said Grant Bixby with the Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, during a video call organized by California’s federal legislative delegation.

He added more than 653,000 jobs and nearly $54 billion in gross domestic product rely on the state's clean beaches and healthy ocean. Bixby said the alliance and its sister organizations, represent “over 55,000 businesses who believe that offshore oil and gas is bad for business."

Offshore drilling remains deeply unpopular nationwide, with two-thirds of American voters opposing new drilling according to recent polls, the Surfrider Foundation said.

"New leases in this drilling plan threaten wildlife, communities, and the coastal recreation and tourism industries that contribute billions of dollars to our nation's economy,” said Chad Nelsen, the foundation’s CEO.

Previous oil spills stoke opposition

Businesses and residents who live in locations where previous oil spills have occurred carry enduring memories of the aftermath.

The devastation to California’s coastal environment and communities took decades to recover after a blowout from an offshore drilling rig in Santa Barbara in 1969, Monterey Bay Aquarium stated in a Nov. 20 news release.

Another such catastrophic spill along the coast “could wipe out vulnerable species like southern sea otters, which live in a limited range,” the aquarium stated, and harm many other species including blue and humpback whales and leatherback sea turtles.

“The science is clear,” said Julie Packard, the aquarium’s executive director. “We’re facing life-threatening impacts of climate change, and this ill-conceived effort to open massive parts of our ocean to offshore oil and gas leasing is a major step backward in the nation’s urgently needed transition away from fossil fuels.”

When an offshore spill occurred off the California coast in October 2021, more than a million people who'd come to see an air show went home early and restaurants and hotels lost customers for many weeks, Bixby said.

“Californians remember every spill, every dead dolphin and sea otter, every fishing season wrecked by contamination,” Huffman and Padilla said. Despite the damage from the previous spills, they say the state now has a burgeoning $1.7 trillion coastal economy.

Opposition expected

The pair vowed to contest the drilling plan.

“This plan targets California and the whole West Coast because they think we will roll over," Padilla and Huffman said in the joint statement. "They are wrong. We’re going to fight this with everything we have.”

Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Florida, pointed to the disaster the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill created along the Gulf coast. "People are going to be angry, they're going to be mad, they will feel betrayed," Castor said. "This is not needed and it's not wanted and we're going to fight it all the way."

Frank expects lawsuits to pile up quickly if the draft program is approved.

“I’m confident that Americans across the political spectrum will come together to fight Trump’s plan to smear toxic crude across our beaches and oceans,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit specializing in protecting endangered species. "I can’t imagine a world where we wouldn’t sue over this horrendous plan ‒ if Trump is actually able to push it through," Monsell said.

Nelsen, the Surfrider Foundation's CEO, said the organization has “beaten the Trump administration's plans to expand offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters before, and we're ready to do it again."

Dinah Voyles Pulver and Terry Collins are national correspondents for USA TODAY. Reach them at dpulver@usatoday.com and tcollins@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Could offshore drilling ruin America's coastlines? Some are worried.

Reporting by Dinah Voyles Pulver and Terry Collins, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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