In the latest episode of Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast, David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols Goldstein speak with longtime ocean activist and former guest Richard Charter about the Trump administration’s punitive effort to open the entire California coastline to offshore oil drilling. It has been several years since their last conversation with Charter, who has spent decades leading efforts to protect America’s coastal seas.

The discussion centers on the Department of the Interior’s latest offshore lease plan, which would open Arctic waters, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and California’s 1,100-mile coastline to drilling—despite polls showing that more than 70% of Californians oppose the move.



Charter outlines the laws this plan would violate, the growing opposition mobilizing to stop it, and the hypocrisy he sees in the administration’s declared “Energy Emergency.” He also explains why this moment may represent the “last gasp” of Big Oil, and what people in California and across the country are doing—and can do—to challenge this dangerous and likely illegal proposal.

** Additional Resources **

Save My Coast — Prepare your public comment on 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program. 

Blue Frontier / Substack — Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild.

Inland Ocean Coalition — Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection

Fluid Studios — Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.