December 21, 2018 — Nine states along the East Coast have joined a lawsuit challenging a key move by the Trump administration that could allow offshore oil and natural gas drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.
The states’ Democratic attorneys general are objecting both to the possible harm to marine life from the administration-approved seismic testing and to the potential offshore drilling that could result from the testing.
The states filed a motion to join a lawsuit environmental groups filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
“Seismic testing will have dangerous consequences for hundreds of thousands of marine mammals, including endangered species,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D), who is leading the multistate effort, said in a statement Thursday.
“While the administration continues to place the interests of the fossil fuel industry ahead of our precious natural resources, attorneys general up and down the Atlantic coast will continue to fight these and other efforts to open the waters off our shores to drilling for oil and gas.”
Frosh announced his lawsuit at Baltimore’s National Aquarium in an effort to highlight what he says would be the damage to marine life from both the testing and any drilling.