Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following announcement this week after the Trump Administration announced that it is definitely preserving its plan to open more than ninety percent of all federal waters to offshore drilling, together with off the coast of Washington state.
Ferguson had threatened to sue if the Administration moved ahead with the idea.
“The Trump administration recognized that if it went ahead with its illegal and dangerous plan to drill for oil and gasoline off of our coast, it’d lose in a federal courtroom — once more,” Ferguson said. “We warned President Trump and Secretary Zinke that we would take prison action if they threatened our coast with oil drilling. They subsided. However, this Administration has proven it can not be relied on. I will continue to hold a watch until the Trump Administration abandons this plan entirely. This idea is a pointless change to our economic system and our untamed, awe-inspiring Washington shoreline. Our seashores and coastal forests are a crucial part of Washington’s identity, and they should continue to be that way for generations to come.”
The Trump Administration announced a draft plan to sell offshore drilling leases inside the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic in January 2018 in regions protecting about ninety percent of the outer continental shelf. Several days later, the Administration’s then-Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, exempted Florida from the offshore lease sales.
The following month, Ferguson sent a letter to Zinke opposing the suggestion and requesting an exemption for the State of Washington similar to Florida.
“Every motive recognized by the Secretary in announcing his choice also applies to Washington,” Ferguson wrote. “Were the Department to grant one nation an exemption without a recognized manner and set up criteria, it might contravene the regulatory framework and tactics that states depend upon for honest and lawful treatment.”
Ferguson, a fourth-generation Washingtonian, spent per week in 1998 trekking from the Hoh River north to Shi Shi Beach. In his letter to Zinke, Ferguson is known as one of the most memorable reviews of his life.
He invited Zinke to sign up for him on a visit to Washington’s coastline and warned the secretary that if the Trump administration moved forward with its intention to put Washington’s coastal communities at risk, Ferguson planned to provoke litigation against the opposition Administration to defend Washington’s coast.
Washingtonians took an estimated four.1 million trips to Washington’s coast in 2014, generating $481 million for Washington’s financial system. Commercial fishing and seafood processing introduced another $117 million that year. Washington’s coast is likewise vital to coastal groups and tribes and domestic to diverse and unique ecosystems.
