When federal agencies began moving quickly this year to expand offshore oil and gas drilling and advance permits for deep-sea mining, counties up and down the California coast faced a common challenge with limited opportunities for public input.
On Nov. 4, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted to take a proactive stand. The Board approved a resolution opposing offshore drilling and deep seabed mining, and agreed to join a revived coalition of California coastal jurisdictions working together to protect the state’s shoreline.
The move came in response to two federal executive orders signed earlier this year – the Unleashing American Energy Act in January and the Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources order in April. Both actions encouraged expanded offshore drilling and deep-sea mining, activities that could threaten fisheries, tourism, visitor-serving industries and the broader coastal economy. Today (Nov. 20), the Trump administration put them into action, announcing plans to allow new oil and gas drilling across nearly 1.3 billion acres of U.S. coastal waters, including California…