Debate starts quickly over proposed offshore oil expansion

Jan. 05--The Trump administration's plan to greatly expand U.S. waters where oil and gas drilling is allowed drew praise from industry officials and Louisiana lawmakers and criticism from environmentalists.

The five-year plan, announced today by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, would open 90 percent of the nation's offshore reserves to drilling starting in 2019. Areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico would open for the first time since 1988.

Officials said the plan will undergo public hearings through February in about two dozen cities before a final draft is produced later this year.

Chris John, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, praised the decision.

"The Gulf of Mexico is an example of how our country can explore and produce American energy while also balancing the needs of other stakeholders such as some of the best hunting, fishing, wildlife watching and tourism," John said in a prepared statement. "Louisiana's success in effectively achieving that balance is a shining example of what the United States can achieve in other federal offshore areas."

Environmentalists, however, cited Louisiana's experience -- specifically the 2010 BP oil spill -- as a major reason drilling should remain off-limits off other states' coasts.

"Americans have seen the devastation that comes from offshore drilling," Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said. "Seven years after the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, the Gulf is still recovering. Will we allow Florida's white beaches or the popular and pristine Outer Banks to share a similar fate? What about the scenic Pacific coast or even remote Arctic waters?"

A group of 64 environmental groups, including the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, also criticized the plan.

"The proposal would expose the Arctic waters -- our last undeveloped ocean -- to drilling, put the Atlantic Coast on the chopping block for the first time since 1983, open the Pacific coast, which has not seen federal drilling for decades, and further threaten the debilitated Gulf of Mexico," the groups said in a joint statement.

Questions remain about whether the plan will lead to more offshore drilling, at least in the short term.

Houma-Thibodaux's offshore-oil-based economy has lost an estimated 16,000 jobs amid a bust that has dragged on for three-and-a half years. A global oil glut that caused prices to plummet has eased somewhat, though prices remain about half their mid-2014 high of $115 a barrel. The U.S. industry has rebounded, but job growth has been limited mostly to inland shale fields, where drilling is less costly than the deep waters of the Gulf.

The last federal lease sale in the Gulf, held in August, attracted few bidders. Another, billed as the largest in U.S. history, is scheduled for March 21 in New Orleans.

Many analysts and industry officials have said it will take consistent prices of $60 a barrel or higher to encourage companies to invest the billions of dollars it takes to drill in the deepwater Gulf. Prices have hovered around that figure over the past few weeks, but analysts and economists disagree over whether that trend will continue.

Nonetheless, Lori LeBlanc, executive director of the Thibodaux-based industry advocacy group the Gulf Economic Survival Team, said opening more areas to drilling is a positive sign.

"The energy produced offshore in the Gulf of Mexico creates good-paying jobs throughout our country, and we are very pleased that this administration embraces the importance of the offshore oil and gas industry," LeBlanc said. "With increasing OCS access, our country has the opportunity to maximize those natural resources in order to continue producing dependable energy, creating thousands of good-paying jobs and providing immense economic stability for our nation."

The plan also drew praise from both of Louisiana's U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, as well as Houma-Thibodaux's congressmen, Garrett Graves and Steve Scalise, all Republicans.

"Preventing energy production in the United States makes us reliant upon foreign energy sources, sends hundreds of billions of American dollars overseas and exports jobs to other countries," Graves said. "This energy plan is different. It starts to reverse our reliance upon foreign energy and aims to maximize our domestic resources, including in the Gulf of Mexico. Our energy workforce and families have suffered through a historic offshore energy slump that was compounded by previous federal policies -- this plan will create jobs, not kill them."

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