Senator Markey Blasts Trump Administration Plan to Allow Deepwater Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

Washington (March 16, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the leading Congressional investigator into the BP oil spill disaster, blasted the Department of the Interior's approval of BP's Kaskida project, a $5-billion offshore oil project in the Gulf of Mexico, which will have significant negative consequences for nearby communities and ecosystems.

In 2010, as then-Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, Senator Markey led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to the Gulf of Mexico to assess the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its impacts. Senator Markey also chaired the first congressional hearing to investigate the spill.

"The Trump administration's approval of BP's latest deepwater oil drilling project is part of Trump's Big Oil payback campaign that is polluting communities and seeing countries bombed, all to reap profits for his fossil fuel donors. BP, the company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster - the worst oil spill in U.S. history - does not have adequate safety measures in place to contain a disastrous high-pressure spill from their new project, and, Congress has not managed to pass any significant safety legislation to protect communities and ecosystems from the impacts of deepwater drilling since the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

"In August, I warned that approving this project could lead to a catastrophic oil spill of millions of barrels - an estimate echoed by BP's own numbers. And now, as Trump's illegal and reckless war in Iran creates chaos in global oil markets and hikes the price of gasoline for Americans nationwide, oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico are poised to bring in windfall profits by exporting their product abroad to the highest bidder - while their destruction stays at home. It's time to stop Trump's Big Oil criminal enterprise."

Senator Markey has long been an opponent of the dangers of offshore drilling, leading his colleagues in calling on the Trump administration to protect the coastlines of the United States from offshore oil drilling. In August 2025, Senator Markey, House Natural Resources Ranking Member Jared Huffman (CA-02), Vice Ranking Member Sarah Elfreth (MD-03), and Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Ranking Member Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03) wrote to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) urging the agency to reject BP's proposed Kaskida project in the Gulf of Mexico. Senator Markey has cosponsored the COAST Anti-Drilling Act (S. 1486), which would permanently prohibit the Department of the Interior from issuing leases for the exploration, development, or production of oil and gas in the North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida Planning Areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

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