Donald Trump's Executive Order May Open Up Offshore Drilling Off Jersey Coast

President Donald Trump is moving forward with a controversial plan to lift a ban on offshore drilling along the New Jersey coast. Trump signed an Executive Order on Friday that expands offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans and beyond. In December, Obama signed a permanent ban on drilling in some parts of those oceans, and banned drilling in the oceans as a whole for five years.

In signing the Executive Order, Trump said the United States has plenty of offshore oil and gas reserves, but that 94 percent of these reserves have been closed to exploration and production, according to The Washington Post.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been directed to explore Obama’s plan, according to NPR. Zinke said that process will take a while, and not all coastal communities want offshore drilling. He also said revenue from offshore leasing dropped by $15 billion under the Obama Administration, with some but not all of that due to the drop in oil prices.

There is plenty of opposition to the decision.

U.S. Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) spoke out against the decision on Thursday, one day before Trump signed the order.

“Keeping the protections from offshore drilling in place for the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico in the Five-Year Plan is essential to protect key industries for our states, such as fishing and tourism, our environment and our climate,” the senators wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. “Allowing drilling anywhere on the East or West Coasts would threaten key economic drivers for these states such as fishing and tourism with the risk of an oil spill.”

Menendez, Markey and 27 other senators signed on to the letter, according to a statement from Menendez’s office.

According to the statement, there are over $700 billion in coastal properties along the Jersey Shore, and the tourism industry generates $38 billion a year.

“The commercial fishing industry generates over $7.9 billion annually and supports over 50,000 jobs,” Menendez said. “The state has one of the largest saltwater recreational fishing industries in the nation.”

He said all of this is threatened by offshore drilling.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2) also opposes the plan.

“I have long warned against drilling in the Mid-Atlantic region, which would put at risk some of the nation’s most sensitive coastal and marine resources, including those off New Jersey,” LoBiondo said. “Protecting these areas means a great deal to the local residents and coastal communities that rely on the cleanliness of our beaches and our tourism economy - a $43 billion industry that supports more than 500,000 jobs. Additionally, our robust commercial and recreational fisheries, some of the largest in the nation, generate over a billion dollars in revenue. I have been proud to the lead bipartisan opposition to efforts by Republican and Democratic Presidents to issue new drilling leases in these waters. The fight continues.”

Earlier this year, LoBiondo introduced a bill that would prohibit drilling off the coast of New Jersey. He has introduced similar legislation in each Congress since 1999.

On Friday, Menendez, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6) announced they would introduce legislation to prevent offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. They plan to introduce the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act in Belmar on Monday.

LoBiondo has also signed on as an original cosponsor to legislation by Representative Mark Sanford (SC-01) that would place a 10-year moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. That bill was to be introduced soon, possibly as early as Friday.

“Today Donald Trump in his reckless attempt to side with Big Oil and Gas has thrown our coast under the bus," New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said. "He is clearly more concerned about corporate polluters and pollution than protecting our coast from the devastating impacts of an oil spill. His dangerous and greedy actions will seriously threaten our $38 billion coastal economy, destroy our ecosystem and fisheries, while harming people who live along the coast. Not only is he going to open up areas for offshore drilling, he is also eliminating safety rules to protect us from spills.”

Tittel also pointed to the impact this could have on tourism, stating that when medical waste washed up onto a 50-mile stretch of New Jersey’s shore in 1988, tourism dropped off tremendously and the state lost about $1 billion in revenue.

When he signed the order instituting the ban, Obama recognized "fishing's critical role in the region's economy and culture," NJ.com reported at the time. The order covered parts of the oceans off the coast of New Jersey, and parts of the oceans from Massachusetts to Virginia.

Former Obama adviser and director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University Jason Bordoff said the process may take up to two years, and questioned whether anyone will want to drill in these areas at that point.

“It depends quite a bit on what the oil market looks like in two years," he said, according to The Press of Atlantic City.

Patch file photo