Reports: Trump wants new offshore drilling in California

The federal government wants to renew oil exploration in federal waters off the coast of California, according to reports in The Washington Post, Politico and The New York Times, reviving a controversial idea initially floated by President Donald Trump late in his first term.

Official approval to let private companies try to tap into a reserve off the coast of Santa Barbara — which federal studies have estimated to be about 5 billion barrels of oil and 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — could be made public by the Interior Department as soon as this week, according to reports.

But even before details of that plan are revealed, the basic idea drew harsh criticism from environmental advocates in Southern California and from state politicians.

Any effort to re-open oil drilling off the California coast would be “dead on arrival,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday, Nov. 11, while attending a climate conference in Brazil.

A key hurdle, according to Newsom and others, is money.

The economics of deep water exploration and drilling could be prohibitive, according to state and federal agencies that looked at the idea in 2020, when Trump first proposed it.

Unlike the Gulf of Mexico, where oil can be pulled out of shelves in comparatively shallow waters, the biggest remaining reserves off California are believed to be 1,000 feet or deeper. That means higher expenses on everything from drilling equipment to dive crews to the size of any new oil platforms.

Another factor is California’s distaste for offshore drilling.

While oil exploration in the Gulf is supported by friendly regulations in states such as Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — helping to make it profitable for job-generating companies to do business in the region — the dynamic is reversed in California.

A massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969 led to legislation that ended drilling in state waters, which extend 3 miles off the coast. It’s also led to only limited drilling and no new leases in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

The Santa Barbara spill also spurred several generations of California residents, and politicians of all political stripes, to oppose offshore drilling. That mindset was revived in 2021, following a smaller, but destructive spill off the coast of Huntington Beach. At the time, state lawmakers campaigned on promises to end drilling operations and decommission existing platforms — ideas that have yet to be enacted.

That anti-offshore oil vibe hasn’t gone away.

In July, a Public Policy Institute of California survey found that one 1 in 3 state residents support drilling off the coast, while 6 in 10 favor establishing more marine reserves, something that would ban future oil exploration.

Though local opinion might not influence federal policy, the mindset could translate into weak political support for approval of the oil-related infrastructure — everything from new underwater pipes to oil-friendly transit hubs to refineries — that would be essential to support new drilling off the coast.

Another issue, according to some, is lack of desire by big oil.

In the decades since the Santa Barbara spill, the number of active offshore oil leases in California has shrunk — from 60 in 1969 to 11 as of last year, according to the California Lands Commission. Though that reflects tougher regulations, it also speaks to how little profit there is to be made from the oil buried under the ocean near California.

Most of the oil industry giants that built offshore platforms in the mid-1980s — platforms that are still visible from the coast in Los Angeles and Orange counties — have sold their interests to smaller operators. Last year, California’s offshore industry accounted for just 0.1% of the nation’s overall oil production, roughly the same as it has since the early 2010s.

The state’s offshore decline runs counter to a national trend, which in recent years has seen the United States become the world’s biggest oil producer, accounting for 14.7% of the world’s supply in 2022.

All of those factors prompted environmental activists to question the seriousness of the Trump administration’s reported move to open up drilling off the California coast.

“I think, more than anything, this is Tump trying to stick it to Newsom,” said Garry Brown, founder of Orange County Coastkeeper, a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that works to ensure state and federal water regulations are enforced.

“We haven’t heard one oil company express a desire to open up new operations off the coast,” Brown added.

“If anything, they want out.”

Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston-based investment firm, echoed that.

He said that while he expected energy companies to snap up the additional leases in the Gulf off Louisiana and Texas, where drilling infrastructure is already plentiful, he doesn’t see the same on this coast.

“California is going to have either no interest or very low interest, with a much smaller subset of players,” Pickering said.

Still, local environmentalists say they’re gearing up to push back.

Brown’s group and the Surfrider Foundation plan to hold a public information meeting on Dec. 8 (7 p.m. in the Adams Room of the Costa Mesa-Donald Dungan Library, 855 Park Ave.) to discuss the topic with officials from the Interior Department.

The federal bid to open up California is part of the Trump administration’s broader push to expand oil production nationally. Earlier this year, the administration said it would look at new oil work “everywhere,” including Alaska, the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Coast.

Since then, the idea has faced resistance from legislators from mid-Atlantic states and from Trump’s home state, Florida, where Republicans have joined Democrats in opposing new drilling after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig disaster devastated the state’s tourism industry.

But Trump’s vision for more oil already has been okayed, at least tentatively, by many of those who say they oppose drilling in their region. The funding plan approved in July as the Big Beautiful Bill — passed almost entirely by Republican lawmakers — calls for at least 36 oil and gas lease sales in federal waters, including 30 in the Gulf and six in Cook Inlet, Alaska.

Federal law requires regulators to offer new national oil leasing plans every five years.

The latest plan, which was finalized by the Biden administration, offered the fewest offshore oil and gas leases in U.S. history.  At the time, Biden officials said the threat of climate change obliged the United States to curb fossil fuel development and rapidly transition to renewable energy. Trump, who has called green energy a “scam,” is forging an opposite path.

The pitch to open California and other spots to new drilling could take at least a year to be finalized. After that, it could be challenged in court.

When Trump discussed a similar idea, in 2020, it drew widespread criticism, including from GOP legislators in Florida, and from national environmental groups. If a new version of that plan goes forward, it could face a similar round of opposition.

“We oppose any expansion of offshore drilling,” said Joseph Gordon, the director of campaigns for Oceana, an international ocean conservation group based in Washington, D.C., “and we are deeply concerned about the possibility of millions of acres of coast being opened up, and the oil spills and devastation that could come of that.”

The New York Times contributed to this report.