Newsom denounces Trump's plan to resume California offshore oil drilling

Chaewon Chung, The Sacramento Bee on Nov 11, 2025

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As Gov. Gavin Newsom’s climate trip in Brazil continues, reports emerged that the Trump administration plans to allow oil and gas drilling off the California coast for the first time since the 1980s.

Newsom called the plan “dead on arrival” and denounced the administration’s consistent pursuit of fossil fuels, saying “the polluted heart of the climate crisis appears to be Donald Trump.”

“As relates to offshore oil drilling, it’s overwhelmingly opposed by members of all political parties in the state of California,” Newsom said Tuesday during a news conference held at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

The Washington Post reported on a draft of the administration’s five-year plan, which outlines six proposed offshore lease sales off California from 2027 through 2030, as well as new drilling expansion into the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Federal offshore oil and gas leases have not been granted off the coast of California since 1984, and the state has repeatedly opposed new sales, citing the risk of oil spills and damage to marine ecosystems as key reasons.

That sentiment aligns with public opinion, according to the Public Policy Institute of California’s 2024 survey, which shows eight in 10 Californians supporting expanding marine sanctuaries and protected areas to safeguard coastal wildlife and habitats, while about two-thirds oppose allowing more oil drilling off the state’s coast.

California’s 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, in particular, was widely seen as a reference point for opposition to offshore drilling — a disaster in which a Union Oil rig six miles off the coast suffered a blowout, releasing 4.2 million gallons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel. The event resulted in the deaths of thousands of seabirds and poisoned dolphins and sea lions among other marine mammals while coating dozens of miles of coastline in oil.

“California is home of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which originated in the federal OCS and had a devastating effect on marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel and fouled miles of California’s shoreline and beaches,” California Ocean Protection Council wrote in 2018 in a resolution opposing oil and gas leasing on the California Outer Continental Shelf.

“We’ve talked in the past COPs about the polluted heart of the climate crisis being big oil,” Newsom said.

“Increasingly, the polluted heart of the climate crisis appears to be Donald Trump.”

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