The Trump administration unveiled a major policy shift on Thursday, announcing that oil drilling will resume off the coasts of California and Florida for the first time in decades. The decision is being framed as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to expand domestic oil production, even as critics warn that the move threatens coastal ecosystems and the communities that rely on them.

For years, the oil industry has sought permission to explore new offshore regions, including Southern California and areas near Florida. Federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which include parts of Florida and Alabama, have been closed to drilling since 1995 because of fears surrounding oil spills. While California still has some offshore rigs from earlier decades, no new federal leases have been issued there since the mid nineteen eighties.

In his second term, President Trump has abandoned the climate priorities of former President Biden and has instead focused on what he calls national energy dominance. He has created a National Energy Dominance Council and ordered agencies to accelerate fossil fuel production. Trump recently dismissed climate change as a global deception and has canceled large clean energy grants while blocking development of projects such as offshore wind farms.

Even before this plan became public, California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned it and warned that the proposal was unacceptable. He declared it “dead on arrival” as soon as reports surfaced. The political climate in Florida is also expected to push back strongly, as both states rely heavily on tourism and clean coastlines.

Under the new plan, the federal government intends to conduct six offshore lease sales between 2027 and 2030 along the California coast. A separate proposal targets areas at least one hundred miles from the Florida shoreline. These zones sit next to the Central Gulf of Mexico, where thousands of wells are already in operation. More than twenty lease sales are planned off Alaska’s coast as well, including a region in the High Arctic located deep in the Arctic Ocean.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that any production from the newly leased areas would take many years to reach fuel markets. He argued that the long term leasing strategy is necessary to safeguard American energy leadership and protect jobs in the offshore industry.

Leaders in the oil and gas sector celebrated the announcement. The American Petroleum Institute described the plan as a milestone that could unlock enormous resources. Industry groups also pointed to California’s long history of oil production and said the state already possesses much of the infrastructure needed to expand operations.

Opposition to the plan, however, remains intense. Florida Senator Rick Scott, who played a key role in stopping a similar effort in 2018, has again voiced strong resistance. He and Senator Ashley Moody recently introduced legislation that would preserve the state’s existing drilling moratorium. Scott emphasised that the beauty of Florida’s beaches is central to the state’s economy and must be protected.

A spokesperson for Governor Newsom said that California had not yet received official details from federal officials but maintained that offshore drilling poses unacceptable risks to coastal communities. California’s long standing resistance to such projects grew after the devastating Santa Barbara spill in 1969, and efforts to strengthen protections increased following another spill near Huntington Beach in 2021. Newsom has backed federal legislation that would permanently ban new offshore drilling along the West Coast.

One company based in Texas is attempting to revive production near Santa Barbara in an area damaged by a spill in 2015. The Trump administration has highlighted this proposal as an example of the type of project it wants to encourage as regulatory barriers are removed.

On the first day of his second term, Trump revoked Biden’s order that halted future offshore drilling on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. A federal court later overturned Biden’s decision to block more than six hundred million acres of federal waters from future development.

Environmental advocates and several lawmakers have warned that the consequences of new leasing could be severe. Leaders such as Senator Alex Padilla and Representative Jared Huffman said that opening up these waters to drilling would endanger national security, harm tourism, threaten wildlife, and place coastal residents at risk. They stressed that a single major spill could cost taxpayers billions in cleanup efforts and ecological recovery.

Environmental groups echoed those concerns. Joseph Gordon of Oceana said the new plan creates a scenario ripe for disaster and that coastal towns cannot afford another catastrophic spill. He argued that many communities depend on healthy oceans for their livelihood and cultural identity, and that this decision puts those values in danger.