By Kathy Castor and Robin Miller
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden issued historic protections for both Florida’s Gulf Coast and much of the U.S. coastline. This designation came after years of bipartisan support rooted in public advocacy and community engagement, and we celebrated this landmark achievement to protect Florida’s environment, economy, national security and way of life.
Permanent protections meant that the threat of devastating oil blowouts would forever be a relic of the past. The effort to protect our coast has been a bipartisan endeavor, especially in Florida, most recently illustrated by my partnership with Rep. Vern Buchanan (FL-16) to introduce the bipartisan Florida Coastal Protection Act, which aims to permanently ban oil drilling off Florida’s coast. Permanently protecting our coast from drilling remains something that both parties should agree on.
Unfortunately, President Donald Trump issued a short-sighted, and illegal, executive order during his first day in office that attempts to rescind these much-needed protections. If allowed to stand, Trump’s order could leave our coastal waters vulnerable once again to future oil drilling and pollution. This decision doesn’t just hurt coastal communities, businesses, and national security — it flies in the face of well-documented opposition to offshore drilling in this state and beyond.
Thousands of Florida businesses have been steadfast in their opposition to oil and gas development in our oceans, and more than 100 Florida cities and towns have passed resolutions opposing this threat to our coastlines. Nearly every elected official in the state of Florida has opposed offshore drilling, and Floridians themselves overwhelmingly voted in 2018 to prohibit oil drilling in the Sunshine State’s nearshore waters.
The Tampa Bay Beach Chamber of Commerce has long opposed offshore drilling, dating back to the mid-2000s, and still maintains that expanded offshore drilling threatens our coastal business. With nearly 800 member businesses representing tens of thousands of employees from Sand Key to Pass-A-Grille, we need permanent protections from drilling to ensure our beaches stay healthy and our businesses thrive.
In fact, President Trump used the same authority as President Biden under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in 2020 to withdraw the southeast Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, from South Carolina through Florida, from drilling for 10 years. But these protections were only a temporary reprieve, and the Sunshine State could soon once again be subject to the horrifying oil spills that have destroyed so many communities and economies in the United States thanks to Trump’s ill-advised reversal.
While it might feel comforting that we have Trump’s protections in place through 2032, he just demonstrated his willingness to try and cast aside protections — and he could try to do the same to his own previous decision to protect Florida’s coasts. If successful, that action would open the eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore drilling, which industry has said they want now, putting Florida’s coast at risk of more oil and gas drilling and spilling.
National security and defense leaders have argued for decades that offshore drilling, with its infrastructure and combustible activity, is incompatible with our U.S. military’s mission and would, therefore, undermine national security. Florida’s Gulf Coast is home to the Eastern Gulf Test and Training Range, the largest military test and training range in the continental United States. Military bases and their surrounding communities should not have to worry about oil drilling impeding their mission to protect our country.
Millions of Floridians and Americans across the country rely on healthy, thriving coastlines. Permanently protecting these waters from oil spills doesn’t just save the surrounding environment – it also safeguards our coastal economies and important American jobs.
The tourism and recreation sector of our marine economy exhibited the largest growth of any in the nation in 2021, increasing by 27.3%, or $49.8 billion. Biden’s protections ensured the majority of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone is saved from offshore oil and gas drilling forever. An oil spill off just one of our coastal states could end in beaches shutting down, businesses closing their doors, and communities being poisoned from the toxic sludge that oozes into their waters and onto their shores.
Successful coastal businesses and communities depend on oceans free from noxious oil spills. We know that when companies drill, they spill. Without lifelong coastal protections, it’s not a matter of if there will be another oil spill, but when and how severe. In the U.S. alone, there were at least 5,900 oil spills between 2010 and 2019 — an average of almost two spills per day.
It isn’t just Floridians calling to protect our coasts. Thousands of lawmakers and hundreds of municipalities across both American coastlines, Republicans and Democrats alike, have strongly come out against offshore oil and gas drilling. Lawmakers are clearly listening to their constituents who want to prevent deadly oil spills that destroy coastlines and local economies, sometimes for years after the fact.
An Oceana poll released last July, conducted by the nonpartisan market research and consulting firm Ipsos, revealed that two-thirds of American voters and 70% of youth voters support their elected officials protecting U.S. coastlines from new offshore drilling. In 2018, 68% of Floridians voted to prohibit oil drilling in state waters (only nine miles offshore). It’s clear that there is bipartisan common ground on protecting our oceans.
Having clean, abundant oceans — ones that we can live on, secure our livelihoods with, and make lasting memories with our families and friends among — is something Americans of all stripes can agree with. Protecting our beautiful and important waters from more poisonous oil spills will conserve the coastal communities and economies that help power our great nation.
Time and again, we hear our constituents say they want lawmakers to work together to solve problems that impact their health, their wallets, and their future. That’s what makes protecting our coasts a winning issue for the lawmakers, leaders, and the public who understand how important our coastlines are to a thriving and prosperous America.
There will never be a time in the future where the risk and harm from offshore drilling will outweigh Florida’s coastal economic interest and national defense. Unlike the protections President Trump previously offered Florida, oil spills do not have an expiration date. These disasters will continue to happen if we don’t protect our coasts from the dangers of offshore drilling.
Clean water and clean beaches are key to Florida’s environment, economy and way of life. We must protect our coasts and keep oil drilling far away from Florida.
Kathy Castor, a Democrat, is a U.S. representative from Tampa. Robin Miller is former CEO of Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce. This opinion piece was originally published by the Tampa Bay Times, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. An offshore drilling platform at sunset in the Gulf (iStock image).
Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. To support The Invading Sea, click here to make a donation. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu.
