Trump’s Plan: Reverse Offshore Drilling Protections

Trump has promised to reverse the Biden administration’s offshore drilling protections. Here’s what his executive action would mean for our clean air and water and our climate progress. 

Trump’s Promises:

• Trump’s transition team pledged that Trump would sign executive orders “within seconds” to unwind limits on offshore drilling. 
• Trump promised to “unban” drilling on 625 million acres of federal waters.
• During his first term, Trump offered more than 78 million acres of offshore public lands for lease to oil, gas, and mineral development. Only 5 million acres were purchased. Out of the nearly 13 million acres of leased areas that oil companies already own, more than 10.5 million acres are yet to go into production. 

The Impacts:

• Offshore drilling and the associated risks, including oil spills, threaten ocean health and devastate local economies, including fishing and tourism.
  • Thousands of oil spills occur in U.S. waters each year – between 2010 and 2019, there were at least 5,900 oil spills in the U.S. alone. 
• Ending new offshore oil and gas leasing in the U.S. could prevent over 19 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution, the equivalent of taking every car in the U.S. off the road for 15 years, and more than $720 billion in damages to people, property, and the environment.
  • Ending offshore leasing would also protect the 3.3 million jobs and $250 billion in GDP that rely on a clean coast.
• If enacted, Trump’s 2019 proposal to increase offshore drilling would have resulted in an additional 46 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution, nearly seven times more than the total amount emitted by the entire U.S. each year. 
• The routine operations associated with offshore drilling release toxic pollutants into the ocean, including heavy metals and hydrocarbons.
  • An average offshore well spews roughly 50 tons of nitrogen oxides, 13 tons of carbon monoxide, 6 tons of sulfur oxides, and 5 tons of volatile organic chemicals. Offshore platforms also release methane pollution, a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. 
• Offshore oil and gas infrastructure, particularly in the Gulf Coast, is also vulnerable to intensifying storms fueled by climate change. In the two weeks after Hurricane Ida for example, 55 spills were reported, including near a fragile nature reserve.
• More than 3,000 wells lay offshore in U.S. waters awaiting to be fully decommissioned, and a 2021 report found that since the 1960s, federal regulators have allowed oil and gas producers in the Gulf to leave 18,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor.
  • Just 10 percent of estimated decommissioning costs for offshore drilling rigs, wells, and pipelines are secured by bonds, leaving taxpayers to shoulder clean-up costs.
• Offshore drilling harms the health of nearby communities. Respiratory, cardiovascular, and other serious illnesses are increasingly prevalent in areas located near offshore oil and gas facilities.
  • Offshore exploration threatens coastal communities, which are one of the largest population centers in the U.S. and are predominantly comprised of communities of color.
  • A history of building refineries and other industrial sites in communities of color means these communities continue to bear a disproportionate burden from oil and gas production. 
  • Along the Gulf Coast, frontline Black, Indigenous, and people of color and low-income communities have been living with the devastating health impacts of offshore oil and gas drilling for decades.