New York AG Filed Comments Detailing Potential Harms of Offshore Drilling

MARCH 9, 2018

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman submitted comments urging the Interior Department “to heed New Yorkers’ demands to exclude areas offshore of New York from its plan to open almost all of the nation’s coasts to oil and gas drilling. The comments — submitted on the Department of Interior’s 2019-2024 draft proposed program for oil and gas leasing in outer continental shelf waters — said the drilling plan ‘would harm vital state interests, including the State’s economy and the unique ecology of our shores and ocean waters.’ The Attorney General pledged that, if the Trump Administration fails to follow the law and exclude the New York waters from the program, his office ‘will use all appropriate legal avenues to vigorously oppose the Department’s program.’”