The oil and natural gas industry on Friday urged Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to maintain his offshore drilling plan and open up federal waters from coast to coast, saying it would bring in almost $600 billion for the economy.
The American Petroleum Institute released four studies commissioned by the oil industry that found the offshore drilling proposal could contribute up to $590 billion to the U.S. economy within two decades.
“Our offshore is the backbone of oil and gas production,” said Erik Milito, API’s director of upstream and industry operations, in a call with reporters. “For us to maintain that, we need to explore and develop resources from new areas."
Friday night is the deadline for the public to comment on Zinke’s proposal to massively expand drilling in federal waters. Almost 600,000 comments had been filed as of Friday afternoon.
Under the Interior Department's draft proposal, spanning 2019 to 2024, more than 90 percent of the total acres on the Outer Continental Shelf would be made available for leasing. It proposes 47 potential offshore lease sales, the most ever over a five-year period, including 19 sales off the Alaska coast, 12 in the Gulf of Mexico, nine in the Atlantic Ocean and seven in the Pacific.
The American Petroleum Institute studies released Friday, written by Calash and Northern Economics, focus on each of the areas Zinke seeks to drill in: the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico coasts, as well as waters around Alaska.
The studies project the Atlantic could see $260 billion in new economic activity, while the Pacific can earn $160 billion.
The Eastern Gulf could see $118 billion in total spending over 20 years.
Energy industry officials have long targeted the eastern Gulf of Mexico, referring to it as the “crown jewel” of America’s untouched offshore waters.
The government has a moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf until June 30, 2022, imposed partly because the Pentagon worries oil development would interfere with military testing and training in the area.
Oil and gas production in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for almost all current U.S. offshore production, is expected to hit a record high in 2018, after suffering three years of losses. Opening areas further east would offer companies strong prospects for oil and gas and easy connections to existing infrastructure.
The industry faces stronger obstacles in the other areas the Trump administration offered for offshore drilling.
The Arctic is remote and expensive. The last offshore lease sale for the East Coast was in 1983 and for the West Coast in 1984.
Coastal governors and other politicians along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, worried about potential spills, have said they oppose Zinke’s plans, and some have vowed to block drilling.
Milito said he was not concerned that Zinke may limit the plan in response to opposition.
The Interior secretary has already said he would exempt waters off the coast of Florida from drilling after Republican Gov. Rick Scott complained.
Milito complained that more than 94 percent of federal waters are currently off limits for drilling, and other countries are absorbing lost opportunity.
“The way the process works is it’s designed to start off large and get narrowed down,” Milito said. “That has been the history. Hopefully there will be additional areas included in this offshore program. There is a fundamental choice. We can develop the resources here, or rely on other countries to secure these significant benefits. In order to be energy dominate, we need to provide additional opportunities outside the Western and Central Gulf [of Mexico].”
API’s studies come after Oceana, a conservation group opposed to drilling, released its own economic research, contending that drilling threatens 2.6 million jobs and almost $180 billion in economic activity in coastal economies.
Milito fought that study’s emphasis, saying the API-commissioned research focused on drilling that has already happened in the Gulf of Mexico and projected that success for other places.
“I would characterize our studies as being a bit more based in reality,” he said. “We’ve seen in the Gulf of Mexico the success of the industry in terms of coexisting and working closely with tourism, commercial fishing as well as the military.”