Guest post by David Middleton

Trump to Open the Door for Oil Drilling Off U.S.’s East Coast

By Jennifer A Dlouhy

December 11, 2017, 4:00 PM CST

Proposal for Atlantic exploration set to be released soon

New five-year plan would replace one put in place by Obama

The Trump administration is preparing to unveil as soon as this week an expansive offshore oil plan that would open the door to selling new drilling rights in Atlantic waters, according to people familiar with the plan.

President Donald Trump ordered his Interior Department to write the new blueprint with the aim of auctioning oil and gas drilling rights off the U.S. East Coast — territory that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, had ruled out. The Interior Department’s coming draft proposal, an initial milestone in replacing the Obama-era sale plan, dovetails with the oil industry’s push for new places to drill, said the people, who asked not to be identified before a formal announcement.

Trump’s proposal would span the years 2019 to 2024, replacing the Obama plan, which runs through 2022.

Industry leaders have lobbied the Trump administration to sell drilling rights in the U.S. Atlantic as a way to complement existing oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. It is not clear how much oil and gas exists off the East Coast, because existing data stems largely from decades-old geological surveys and more than four-dozen wells drilled in the 1970s and 1980s.

Oil companies also want the Trump administration to sell drilling rights in Arctic waters north of Alaska and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico — where federal law bars new oil leasing through 2022. Lawmakers from Florida have fought efforts to expand offshore drilling they say would imperil the state’s tourism-tied economy and are seeking to extend that ban.

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Bloomberg