Twelve AGs Filed Comments Opposing Interior Department’s Offshore Drilling Plans

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh led a coalition of 12 state attorneys general in filing comments with the Interior Department expressing strong opposition to plans to expand drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico. In their comments, the attorneys general emphasize that the Interior Department “should defer to our opposition to drilling in areas off our states’ coasts, and should exclude all such areas from any new or revised [Outer Continental Shelf] leasing program. Indeed, failure to do so would be inconsistent with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act…and the Department of Interior’s past practice of not imposing offshore drilling over state opposition.”