Local industry leaders raise economic concerns posed by Trump's offshore oil drilling proposal.

Local leaders from Monterey County met to discuss the economic and environmental impacts posed by the Trump administration’s leasing proposal for offshore oil drilling. The proposal includes 34 lease sales across 21 areas, with six of the California coast. Two of these are for the Central Coast, and could begin as early as 2027.

The Feb. 19 roundtable at the Portola Hotel in Monterey was led by U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, and was joined by industry leaders including Rick Aldinger of the Monterey County Hospitality Association, Kirk Gafill of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce, Jose Luis Barajas of the Monterey County Business Council, and Melissa Mahoney, executive director of the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust.

The meeting was in response to a second public comment period opened by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to solicit industry-focused input, specifically for the Southern California and Central California regions. The public comment period, while open to all, seeks input from technical experts and organizations that have industry knowledge about energy, fishing, hospitality and tourism, public health and more.

The current 30-day public comment period opened on Jan. 27 and closes Feb. 26. Panetta said he and other officials are requesting (and expecting) an extension. The previous public comment period lasted 60 days and drew roughly 260,000 public comments. A third and final 90-day public comment period is slated for this spring, before BOEM will release the final proposed program this summer.

“As we've seen from this administration, a lot of their talk is aspirational to a certain extent, but also very real and dangerous if they go forward with it,” Panetta says. “They want [this] by 2027 and there are so many things that have to be put in place, including the oil companies that actually have to want to do this and invest in this before they do that. But the fact is that they're kind of setting the ground game right now to do this.”

The threats highlighted at the meeting were largely surrounding economic impacts to tourism as a result of visual blight and stemming from environmental degradation, and the reshaping of coastal communities to make space for onshore infrastructure.

In Monterey County, visitor spending neared pre-pandemic levels in 2024, reaching $3.1 billion, a figure local officials say is directly connected to the natural beauty and a pristine coastline. Speakers argued that if the visual appeal is compromised, then the attractiveness of the area to visitors will erode.

“It's hard to imagine that the value of the extracted resource in these areas is going to offset the risk and the diminishment of the value of the existing growing economy,” Gafill said. “It's not just a coastal issue. It really affects the entirety of the state. If there was something along the coast that diminished the attractiveness and desire of driving up and down Highway 1, people would consider traveling elsewhere.”

Barajas, who also serves on the board of directors for the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, raised concerns about residents in North County who rely on recycled water. He questioned the possibility of contamination if onshore pipelines connected to oil infrastructure were to leak.

Mahoney highlighted the seismic surveying that would be necessary before any drilling or leasing could occur. She said mapping the seafloor through seismic imaging could affect marine life and local fisheries that depend on healthy ocean ecosystems.

“3D seismic imaging comes from air blasting through the water column,” Mahoney says. “Those areas will be closed off [to fishermen], and that is hugely detrimental to everything from the whales to the invertebrates.

"If that’s a case study to show industry leaders that this is a credible threat, and that there are specific activities that are going to unfold even before these leases come across, it can hopefully start to build that coalition.”