Explaining Regulatory Comment to Oppose the MAGA Regime's Offshore Oil Drilling Expansion.
In addition to legislative, policy, financial, and law-enforcement attacks on our democracy, the MAGA Regime is engaged in a systematic campaign to gut or entirely eliminate environmental, health, anti-discrimination, safety, labor, and other hard-won regulations and policies. Each time they attack a rule, they must provide an online public-comment period that "We the People," can use to express our opposition.
The MAGA Regime is driven by ideology and greed, so we have no expectation that our comments will sway them. But there are two reasons for us to say, "No, we oppose…:"
Throughout history, "Silence Equals Assent." We do NOT consent, and we have to stand up and say so.
Large numbers of voters registering their opposition to a regulatory change provides political incentive and moral support to Members of Congress who can legislatively oppose it by passing a Congressional Review Act resolution, and the same to judges ruling on legal challenges.
The MAGA Regime's enormous expansion of off-shore oil drilling is an assault on our environment, health, and safety. It will result in massive increases in the greenhouse gas emissions that are already spiking the global warming climate crisis. And it means more oil well blowouts, drilling-rig fires, and pollution spills along our coastline as the fossil fuel industry cuts corners on safety to expand their already obscene profits.
Though this scheme to give away almost 2 million square miles of our coastal waters to oil cartel drilling and extraction is particularly egregious, it is just one aspect of a broader context of enriching the already wealthy, expanding the political power of the elite few, and returning America to the Gilded Age of robber barons, Jim Crow, and Christian nationalism.
The MAGA Regime's strategy, tactics, and personnel roster are clearly spelled out in the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" policy manual:
A vast expansion of presidential power at the expense of Congress and We the People.
Crippling or dismantling agencies that defend the public or regulate the powerful.
Rolling back our human rights.
Boosting the fossil fuel industry and blocking competition from renewable energy sources.
People like us donate money to candidates and parties because we support or believe in them. But the billionaires and giant corporations whose dark money fund MAGA political campaigns see those millions as investments from which they expect a huge financial return. A case in point is this proposed give-away to the petroleum industry of almost 2,000,000 square miles of our coastal waters for them to plunder and profit from.
We have no doubt that the fossil fuel industry and their paid lobbyists and think-tanks are already submitting comments in favor of selling off our coastal waters to Big Oil The well-funded MAGA political machine is no doubt mobilizing their loyal followers to submit supportive comments as well. If we remain silent, our silence is taken as assent. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, put it: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Oppose the off-shore drilling expansion today by submitting your comments today.
References
Trump Plans to Open More Than a Billion Acres of U.S. Waters to Drilling, NY Times, 11/20/25
Trump Proposes Massive Expansion of Offshore Drilling in Public Waters; Targets Protected Public Waters off California, Eastern Gulf near Florida, All of Alaska, Earthjustice, 11/20
US Taxpayers Will Pay Billions in New Fossil Fuel Subsidies Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, Wired, 9/9/25