Trump’s new Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling proposal looks a lot like Obama’s

The Trump administration on Monday announced an offshore oil and gas drilling proposal in the Gulf of Mexico that appears to mirror a plan offered by his predecessor a few months ago. In one of his first acts after last week’s Senate confirmation, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed leasing 73 million acres off Florida, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi over five years starting in August. The offer includes more than 13,700 lease blocks extending three miles to 230 miles offshore, according to an Interior Department statement. “Opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling is a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent,” Zinke said in the statement. “The Gulf is a vital part of that strategy to spur economic opportunities for industry, states and local communities, to create jobs and homegrown energy and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” But the plan is similar to a five-year proposal by the Obama administration to lease 66 million acres in the same location, the gulf’s “Western, Central and Eastern planning areas” where water is as shallow as nine feet and as deep as 11,000 feet. As he prepared to leave office, President Obama banned drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans for the next five years, but allowed it in the gulf with lease plans offered primarily off gulf states other than Florida...more