Trump calls for expanding offshore drilling in Arctic and Atlantic

In his latest effort to wield the power of his pen to overturn Obama-era environmental protections, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at opening huge swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans to offshore drilling. The order calls for revisions of the current five-year leasing program (covering 2017–2022) that encompasses northern Alaska and the mid-Atlantic to the Southeast, and potentially the California coast. Trump wants to give oil and gas companies access to areas that President Obama permanently protected from drilling. In addition, Trump’s directive takes aim at safety rules that were put in place after the catastrophic BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. As if all that wasn’t enough, the order puts into question recently designated or expanded national marine sanctuaries and marine monuments, ones that harbor some of our country’s most sensitive and valuable ocean areas.

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