The Solution

We need our elected officials to take action to permanently protect our coasts from offshore oil and gas drilling.

In 2022, Democrats passed the largest federal investment in climate and renewable energy through the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). However, the IRA also included harmful provisions that prevent the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) from advancing new renewable energy projects without also offering new onshore and offshore oil and gas leases to the fossil fuel industry. While the IRA is supercharging clean energy investments and jobs across the country, it has yet to reach its full potential due to oil and gas leasing requirements.

The U.S. does not need new offshore leasing to meet its national energy needs. The U.S. is the biggest producer of oil and gas on earth and is now a net exporter of fossil fuels. Moreover, ending new leasing would not meaningfully affect production levels for almost a decade. Congress must re-introduce and pass the CLEAN Energy Act and NOW Act to repeal unnecessary provisions from the IRA that mandate oil and gas lease sales as a prerequisite for clean energy development.

Expanding offshore oil and gas leasing will only distract from real threats to our air, water, climate, and ecosystems. A Government Accountability (GAO) report found that the Department of the Interior has failed to adequately enforce the oil and gas industry’s obligations to decommission aging offshore oil and gas wells and platforms in public waters – which could cost the American public between $40-$70 billion. If President Trump wants to provide Americans with the cleanest air and cleanest water, as he promised to do on the campaign trail, then he will protect our coasts from offshore oil and gas drilling.

The Facts: Offshore drilling threatens our environment, public health, safety, coastal economies, fisheries, and vital marine ecosystems.

Drilling operations release pollutants linked to cardiovascular issues, asthma, respiratory disorders, and cancers.

Terminals are sited in communities – often communities of color and low-income communities – already overburdened by the petrochemical industry.

Extracting and burning fossil fuels is linked to an hundreds of thousands of deaths each year due to particulate pollution and billions in damage each year due to climate change in the United States.

Coastal economies depend on a healthy and thriving environment. Oil spills, like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, impact thousands of jobs, harm marine life and ecosystems long after the oil has been cleaned up, cause billions in economic losses, and leave taxpayers to foot the bill to clean up a mess that they did not make.

Offshore lease sales have long-term consequences by locking in production for decades and resulting in hundreds of millions of metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Oil spills have nearly wiped out the entire Gulf of Mexico Rice’s Whale population. Continued exploration and development of offshore drilling also threaten fish, oysters, migratory birds, bears, and more.

Hurricane-caused damage to oil and gas infrastructure is a leading cause of oil spills. Powerful storms threaten American coastlines for more than half the year, and are becoming more intense. As hurricane intensity increases, so does the risk of storm damage to offshore oil infrastructure and the possibility of disaster.

Drilling operations also conflict with military operations. According to the Department of Defense (DOD), the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) hosts a wide variety of training and testing activities critical to military readiness and our national security.