Trump Opens Nearly All U.S. Coastal Waters To Offshore Drilling, Carves Out Single Exemption For State Hosting His Beach Club

The Filing

WASHINGTON. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday unveiled a draft five-year plan opening more than 90 percent of the United States outer continental shelf to offshore oil and gas leasing, the broadest expansion of federal seabed drilling in American history, before exempting within five days the single coastal state in which the President of the United States owns a beachfront resort.

The proposal, which reversed Obama-era protections across the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and eastern Gulf of Mexico, would make 25 of 26 federal planning areas available for industry bids over the 2019 to 2024 leasing window. The administration described the policy as part of a broader commitment to "energy dominance," a phrase a White House official said had been selected for its evocation of energy and of dominance.

Following a brief meeting between Mr. Zinke and Florida Governor Rick Scott at the Tallahassee airport, the Interior Department announced that Florida alone would be removed from consideration, citing what it called the state's "unique" reliance on coastal tourism. Officials in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, and Maine, whose economies likewise depend on coastal tourism and which had likewise requested exemptions, were informed that their coastlines did not present comparable concerns.

A senior administration aide, asked to clarify which feature distinguished the Florida coastline from that of every other coastal state, suggested that "the President's understanding of the region is informed by his personal familiarity with it." Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach club where Mr. Trump spends a substantial portion of each calendar year and from which he draws membership-fee income, sits roughly 80 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

Asked on Friday whether the carve-out was related to Mr. Trump's Florida holdings, the White House replied that the President's interest was "the protection of an important coastline." Asked separately whether the President considered the coastlines of California or Maine to be likewise important, the same official said only that those determinations were "ongoing."

At press time, the administration confirmed that any state seeking exemption from offshore drilling could submit its case directly to Mar-a-Lago's membership office, where the initiation fee had recently been raised to $200,000.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump personally, whose Mar-a-Lago beachfront club and other Palm Beach holdings are spared the visual, ecological, and property-value consequences of nearby offshore rigs while every other coastal state remains exposed.
§Trump Organization Florida properties, including Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach and Trump National Doral, whose values track a protected Florida coastline.
§Florida Governor Rick Scott, then preparing a Senate run, who secured a politically prized exemption his counterparts in other states could not obtain.
§The U.S. offshore oil and gas industry, granted access to roughly 90 percent of federal continental shelf acreage that had been under varying degrees of protection.
§Foreign and domestic energy investors, positioned to bid on newly opened lease blocks across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic.
§Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose deregulatory portfolio advanced one of the largest single offshore expansions in the agency's history, weeks before the ethics investigations that would precipitate his resignation.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment