The Trump administration’s revised five-year program to expand offshore drilling in most federal waters will be released “in the coming weeks,” an Interior Department official said on Wednesday, after months of opposition from coastal state lawmakers opposed to exposing their shorelines to oil and gas exploration. Walter Cruickshank, acting director of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said at a House hearing that the agency is finalizing its proposed five-year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas leasing program for 2019 to 2024 but declined to say whether certain states would be exempt. BOEM last year proposed to open up over 90 percent of coastal waters in the outer continental shelf to oil and gas drilling, offering 47 lease sales, including areas like California that […]