Trump’s ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Now Targeting California’s Coastline
Earlier this year, as the Trump administration ramped up pressure on California to agree to increased oil and natural gas drilling permits up and down the Pacific Coast, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick took to the social media platform X to berate the California Coastal Commission, and the Coastal Zone Management Act’s system for maintaining the coast in line with California regulations, for its “obstructionist” and extreme environmental tendencies.
In an unprecedented move, Lutnick ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s auditors — who are in charge of reviewing the regulatory systems of each of the more than 30 coastal and Great Lakes states — to conduct a new audit.