Not in My Backyard: Coastal States Seek Exemptions to Offshore Drilling

On January 4, 2018, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced the 2019-2024 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, a plan to open nearly all U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas exploration and drilling. The program would lease the coastal areas along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and several regions of the Arctic Ocean (i.e., Alaska) for oil and gas exploration and contemplates 47 leases on the outer continental shelf of US waters. Prior to 2019, the administration …

Continue Reading