WASHINGTON— The Trump administration released a draft plan today for conducting as many as 34 offshore oil and gas lease sales over the next five years. The plan could open up as much as 1.27 billion acres to drilling, far more federal waters than previous administrations have, offering auctions between 2026 and 2031 in the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and Gulf of Alaska.

“Trump’s war on marine life continues with this absolutely unhinged attack on our coasts,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Auctioning off nearly the entire U.S. coast to Big Oil will inflict oil spill after devastating oil spill, harm whales and sea turtles and wreck fisheries and coastal economies. I’m confident that Americans across the political spectrum will come together to fight Trump’s plan to smear toxic crude across our beaches and oceans.”

If Trump’s plan is carried out, offshore drilling could mean extinction for critically endangered animals like North Pacific right whales off Alaska and Rice’s whales and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles in the Gulf.

On the West Coast, sea otters would be at risk even in protected areas because of the inclusion of Monterey Bay, the Greater Farallones and the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuaries off California.

Nearly every area of Alaska’s oceans are proposed for drilling. Oil spills there would threaten polar bears, walrus and bowhead and beluga whales, along with coastal communities dependent on healthy fish and marine mammal populations.

Today’s draft plan from the Department of the Interior represents a huge increase in offerings of public waters to the oil and gas industry over the most recent five-year plan, finalized under the Biden administration. The proposed plan follows legislation enacted earlier this year that mandates 30 leases in the western and central Gulf of Mexico through 2040 and six sales in Cook Inlet through 2032. The sales included in today’s proposed program would be in addition to these congressionally mandated sales.

The plan comes as world leaders are gathered in Belem, Brazil, for the COP30 climate talks. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was at the talks last week, called the plan “dead on arrival in California.” This is the first year the U.S. federal government hasn’t sent a delegation to the talks in their 30-year history.

“Trump can’t stand it that Gov. Newsom showed him up here in Brazil, and I think that explains the timing of this reckless plan to drill our oceans,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who is at COP30. “To Trump, this plan is political theater to spite Newsom and the climate talks. But this isn’t an episode of The Apprentice. This plan would do immense damage to people and wildlife, damage those of us at COP30 are fighting like hell to defend against.”

Interior will take public comment on the plan for 60 days. For the first time, the agency will not be conducting an environmental review of the plan, and it has indicated that it may not hold public hearings.