Almost eight years after the tragic accident involving the Deepwater Horizon – the British Petroleum oil platform that exploded in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in US history (as well as eleven fatalities) – the Washington administration is preparing to relaunch offshore exploration for hydrocarbons with great fanfare.

Read also: Drilling returns to Alaska. Eni and Donald Trump are dragging the world towards the past

Oil will be sought from Alaska to California

This was confirmed on 4 January 2018 by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke at a telephone press conference. The plan decided upon by Donald Trump's government is an enormously wide-ranging one, covering almost the entirety of United States territorial waters, including those off California and Florida. And it does not spare the Arctic region, as already announced back in November 2017, when the first new drilling permit in years was granted – obtained by Italian company Eni.

With Zinke's announcement, the American administration is thus beginning a total dismantling of the decisions taken by Donald Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. The latter, precisely in the wake of the 2010 disaster, had chosen to impose rules, restrictions and constraints on oil exploration. From 2019 onwards, it will instead once again be possible to view virtually the entire sea washing the US coastline first and foremost as a potential oil field.

Oceana ✓ @oceana

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#BREAKING: Trump administration announces plans to open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore drilling. Together, we must stand united against this grave attack, before it’s too late. Add your name now: bit.ly/2EVgN0R #ProtectOurCoast

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Nineteen five-year permits in Alaska

The new concessions are expected to cover 90 per cent of territorial waters, through a total of 47 new five-year permits, according to details provided by the Secretary of the Interior. Of these, seven will concern the Pacific coast, nine the Atlantic coast, twelve the Gulf of Mexico and as many as 19 the Alaskan coastline. This is despite the latter representing one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the world: one need only cast one's mind back to the disaster of 24 March 1989, when the region was devastated by the sinking of the tanker Exxon Valdez. As the vessel went down, it spilled 42 million litres of crude oil into the sea, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

Kyle Griffin ✓ @kylegriffin1

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The Sierra Club is exploring legal action to the Trump admin’s expanded offshore drilling proposal.

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"The expansion of offshore drilling is meeting strong opposition from numerous representatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as from local communities and the governors of states such as New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Florida," explained the Sierra Club, one of the most important environmental organisations in the United States. "Rather than listening to the people – added the NGO, which is considering legal action against the government – Donald Trump and Ryan Zinke are listening to the industry figures who funded the electoral campaign and who today make up their administration."

"We are aiming for dominance in the energy sector"

Indeed, among those to have criticised the American government's decision is Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican: "I immediately requested," he declared, "a meeting with Secretary Zinke to express my concerns and ask for my state to be removed from the list." The government has already indicated that it will listen to the concerns of the federal states. But it has also made its own strategy perfectly clear: "There is a clear difference between weakness and dominance in energy. We will become a superpower in this field."