January 17, 2018 — Oil slicks off Coney Island. Disruptions at the largest container port on the East Coast. Empty nets for New York’s fishing industry.

With these scenarios in mind, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a formal request on Monday for New York to be exempted from the Trump administration’s proposed plan to expand offshore oil drilling to every coastal state.

Cuomo said New York state’s coastal economy generates tens of billions of dollars in economic activity and provides hundreds of thousands of jobs, all of which would be threatened by toxic chemicals released during drilling and from oil spills. There are currently no oil wells off the Atlantic coastline.

Cuomo’s letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke comes a week after Zinke said the Trump administration would allow the state of Florida to be exempted from the controversial plan, called the OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program.

According to the Associated Press, after a short meeting between Zinke and Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott at a local airport, Zinke said oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico would be “off the table” because of Florida’s reliance on tourism. Other coastal states immediately clamored to be exempt as well.

In his letter to Zinke issued on Monday, Cuomo wrote in part, “Your decision to remove Florida from consideration of any new oil and gas platforms before your department has even concluded its public fact-finding process appears arbitrary. Nevertheless, to the extent that states are exempted from consideration, New York should also be exempted.”

Cuomo said that an oil spill offshore New York’s Atlantic coast “would cripple the state’s ocean tourism economy and devastate coastal ecosystems, and toxic chemical releases associated with day-to-day drilling operations and pipeline leaks would negatively impact marine and other wildlife.” He added that just this week two of the world’s 450 remaining North Atlantic Right whales were observed off Montauk.

Read the full story at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle