An Interior Department official says the Trump administration’s promise to exempt Florida from an offshore drilling plan is not a formal action.
January 22, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s promise to exempt Florida from an offshore drilling plan is not a formal action, an Interior Department official said Friday in a statement that Democrats said contradicted a high-profile announcement by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Zinke has proposed opening nearly all U.S. coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling, but said soon after announcing the plan that he will keep Florida “off the table” when it comes to offshore drilling.
Zinke’s Jan. 9 statement about Florida “stands on its own,” said Walter Cruickshank, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, but there’s been no formal decision on the five-year drilling plan.
“We have no formal decision yet on what’s in, or out, of the five-year program,” Cruickshank told the House Natural Resources Committee at a hearing Friday.
Zinke’s announcement about keeping Florida off the table, made during a Tallahassee news conference with Florida Gov. Rick Scott, will be part of the department’s analysis as it completes the five-year plan, Cruickshank said.
Democrats seized on the comment to accuse Zinke of playing politics by granting the Republican governor’s request to exempt Florida while ignoring nearly a dozen other states that made similar requests.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News & World Report