A Review of Coastal States’ Comments on BOEM’s Outer Continental Shelf Draft 5-Year Program

Abstract

Federal law gives states an important voice and role in defining the Outer Continental Shelf 5-Year Lease Program. This article reviews selected written state responses to the Trump Administrations Draft 2019–2024 Draft Program issued by Bureau of Ocean Energy Management pursuant to President Trump’s April 28, 2017 “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy” Executive Order. The states’ comments outline the contours of the upcoming political and court battles over the 5-year program. In addition, the comments illustrate how stakeholders use a variety of legal arguments and policy developments to influence ocean use.

Keywords:

• States
• OCS leasing
• oil and gas
• Trump

Notes

Notes

1 For example, in BOEM’s March 21 federal lease sale for the Gulf of Alaska “companies bid on just 1%” of the 77.3 million acres offered and paid an average of only $153 an acre . . . 35% below [2017] levels and a fraction of the 2013 average.” (Pike 2018).

2 The author thanks Paul Smyth for sharing his insights into the OCS leasing process.

3 Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 16 U.S.C. §§ 1451–1464, Chapter 33.

4 President Reagan’s Interior Secretary.

5 Janet Mills, Maine’s Attorney General describes bipartisan and overwhelming opposition to the draft Program. She notes that “Maine's legislators at both the State and National level oppose oil and gas development off the coast of Maine.” In this regard, Mills notes that Maine's Congressional Delegation and state house and senate unanimously oppose the DPP (Mills 2018).

6 State comments include letters from Governors, Attorneys General, Cabinet Level Officials, and local governments when included as an attachment to a state letter. The in-text reference is the author of the comment letter to BOEM. The reference section provides more detail for each letter.

7 In other comments California notes the clear signs of climate change such as “larger wildfires, additional sea-level rise, reduced snowpack, more frequent heat waves, major storms, and drought.” Therefore California “strongly believes that the Secretary’s focus on fossil fuels development in the OCS is shortsighted, outdated, and . . . California is strongly committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and addressing the impacts of climate change (Luchessi 2018).

8 The author thanks Richard Charter, Senior Fellow the Ocean Foundation, for providing many of the materials used in this section and for his insights on the history of OCS moratoria.

9 On the Republican side of the aisle, thirty-six U.S. senators wrote to support the Draft Program (Murkowsi et al. 2017).

10 See Pew (2017) for a discussion of polarization in U.S. political institutions.

11 Individual states make the similar point. The California Coastal Commission (Bocho 2018), for example, compared its coastal economy to Florida’s as follows: “While the Department of Interior appears to be sending mixed signals about whether (or at what point) Florida will be removed from the Program, due to its “unique” coastal tourism economy, California merits the same consideration as Secretary Zinke announced for Florida—removal from the Program. California’s economy is roughly three times that of Florida, with over $2 trillion of its $2.35 trillion dollar gross domestic product derived from coastal counties, according to the National Ocean Economics Program. If offshore drilling poses a risk to Florida’s economy, the risk to California’s is three times greater” (Bocho 2018).

12 Secretary Zinke’s “fumbling” approach reminded long term OCS activist, Richard Charter, of a prior Interior Secretary’s off-the-cuff approach to policy making. Charter recalls the “Give him more rope” signs that appeared in response to James Watt’s OCS program during the Reagan Administration (R. Charter personal communication).