Community members attended a public hearing in Santa Barbara to express concerns about the Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore drilling nationwide, including off the coast of California.
As part of the proposed 2026–2031 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, the Department of the Interior announced in November 2025 plans for 34 potential offshore lease sales across 21 of the 27 existing Outer Continental Shelf planning areas.
This proposal would cover nearly 1.27 billion acres, including 21 areas off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Gulf of Mexico, and six along the Pacific Coast.
According to the Department of the Interior, the proposal is part of the Trump administration’s plan to restore “American Energy Dominance.”
Reminding citizens that the 60-day comment period ends on January 23, 2026, environmental groups, including Environmental Defense Center (EDC), Surfrider Santa Barbara, Sierra Club, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, and Environmental Affairs Board, organized a People’s Hearing on January 16, 2026, to oppose the Trump administration’s drilling plans.
The draft proposal opens up ecologically fragile regions, such as the Santa Barbara Channel, to new oil and gas development, environmental groups noted during the People’s Hearing on January 16, 2026.
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The push for oil drilling comes at a time when the country needs to focus on transitioning to more clean and renewable energy, Surfrider Santa Barbara said in an Instagram post.
The gathering included an education presentation from Maggie Hall at the Environmental Defense Center, and comments from industry professionals, and community members, including actor and advocate Ted Danson.
Increased drilling activity in the ocean not only makes the region more susceptible to oil spills, but it also significantly harms air quality, public health, climate, and wildlife in one of the most biodiverse marine areas in the world, EDC shared in a social media post on January 12, 2026.
“Everyone agrees that the risk of expanded offshore drilling is too high for California’s coastline, fisheries, wildlife, communities, and local economies,” Danson wrote in an Instagram post on January 18, 2026.
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Danson is also a board member of Oceana, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans.
Santa Barbara has a grim history of oil spills. On January 28, 1969, a blowout in Union Oil’s new drilling rig, Platform A, caused oil and gas to leak into the ocean, resulting in the “water turning black.”
Over the next few days, more than 11,000 tons of oil had spread over 200 sq. km., with an oil slick that inched close to the coastline. In the following weeks and months, numerous marine animals and birds died, sparking widespread public protests and eventually leading to the creation of the National Environmental Policy Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Marine Sanctuaries system and helped establish the first Earth Day.
In May 2015, crude oil spewed out from an aging and defective pipeline near Highway 101, dumping over 100,000 gallons of crude oil on the coast, fouling Refugio State Beach. The 10-square-mile oil slick injured and killed multiple wildlife animals, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
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