Governors of coastal states have urged the Trump administration to scrap its plan to usher oil and gas drilling into almost all US waters, in an unusual bipartisan backlash against the surprise proposal itself – and the controversial twist that suddenly saw Florida, alone, excused from going along with it.

On Wednesday, Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, revealed that Florida would be exempt from the massive new drilling plan announced earlier in January, which vastly expands offshore areas for leasing to fossil fuel companies in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.

Zinke said that drilling would not be permitted off Florida’s coast as a result of pressure from Rick Scott, the state’s Republican governor. Several other governors, including Republicans, reacted furiously. More flippantly, the film-maker Michael Moore had already threatened to launch a “monster” fracking operation off the coast of Mar-a-Lago, the site of Donald Trump’s Florida resort.

In a statement, Zinke said he had “witnessed Governor Scott’s leadership through hurricane season and am working closely with him on Everglades restoration”.

“He is a straightforward leader that can be trusted,” Zinke said. “President Trump has directed me to rebuild our offshore oil and gas program in a manner that supports our national energy policy and also takes into consideration the local and state voice. I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

The statement prompted a flurry of responses from governors of other coastal states, who queried why Florida should be the only state spared from the possibility of a disastrous oil spill and other harm caused to the marine environment and communities that depend upon fishing or tourism.

Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey has objected. “If exceptions are being made for other states, the governor will certainly pursue the same type of exception for New Jersey,” Christie’s office said in a statement on Wednesday morning. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s Republican governor, has also said he is against drilling off his state’s coast

Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Democratic governor, tweeted: “New York doesn’t want drilling off our coast either. Where do we sign up for a waiver?”

Ralph Northam, Virginia’s governor-elect, also a Democrat, said he would like to “have a word” with Zinke about Florida’s apparent special status.

Democrats and environmentalists have accused Zinke of making a purely political calculation in order to bolster Scott, who may run for a US Senate seat currently held by Bill Nelson, a Democrat. Nelson tweeted: “This is a political stunt orchestrated by the Trump administration to help Rick Scott, who has wanted to drill off Florida’s coast his entire career.”

Trump narrowly won Florida’s 29 electoral votes in the 2016 election and has encouraged Scott to run for the Senate. Zinke said after a brief meeting with Scott at the Tallahassee airport that drilling would be “off the table” when it comes to waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off Florida.

On the west coast, which faces the prospect of the first new drilling in the Pacific in three decades, Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, tweeted to Zinke “let’s do the same for Oregon” in reference to the Florida decision. Brown has joined with her counterparts in California and Washington state to call the drilling plan “reckless and shortsighted”.

The Trump administration’s new oil and gas leasing programme, which would run from 2019 to 2024, would make more than 90% of the outer continental shelf available for what would be the largest ever number of lease sales to fossil fuel companies.

Some Republicans are keen on the drilling plan, with Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski calling it a “positive step”.

But a strikingly broad coalition has formed in opposition, comprising governors of both major parties, environmental groups, small town mayors and including the Department of Defense, which has raised concerns that oil rigs could interfere with military training movements in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.