Trump plans huge oil drilling expansion off California and Alaska coasts
Oil rigs and support equipment sit on the tundra in Deadhorse, Alaska, on Friday, September 5, 2025.
Nathaniel Wilder | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Trump administration on Thursday announced plans for a major oil drilling expansion in Alaska, off the coast of California and in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Department of the Interior has proposed 34 lease sales for drilling in these waters by 2031; This is a major expansion from the Biden administration program, which allows only three lease sales and only in the Gulf.
The Trump program will include lease sales at 21 sites off the coast of Alaska, six off the Pacific coast and seven in the Gulf of Mexico. This marks the first time since 1984 that Interior has authorized a new lease in the Pacific, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Home Affairs’ proposal is not a final program. It still needs to be subjected to further scrutiny.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum accused the Biden administration of “crippling America’s long-term pipeline of offshore production” by putting the brakes on oil and gas leasing.
More than 100 Democratic lawmakers expressed opposition to the plan in an Oct. 30 letter addressed to President Donald Trump and Burgum.
“Expanding oil and gas leasing poses risks to the health and livelihoods of our constituents, jeopardizes our tourism, fishing and recreation economies, and threatens the marine life that lives along our coastlines,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Natural Resources Defense Council condemned Trump’s plan as horrific and reckless in a post Thursday.
“The proposal would open Alaska’s pristine waters to drilling, seek to revitalize the offshore oil and gas industry in California, and offer waters off the coast of Florida that have been unleased for decades, in addition to more leasing in the Gulf of Mexico.” NRDC said.
“This plan will harm these places and the people who have relied on them for generations,” the environmental group said.
