This is an era of abundant energy and growing environmental risks, so the Trump Administration - which has mastered the dark art of compromising the practical future for the political present - has decided it would be the perfect time to hang a massive choker of oil rigs around the country's neck.
The president has proposed opening up more than 90 percent of the waters surrounding the continental U.S. - that's 100 million acres - to offshore drilling.
Currently, drilling is banned in 94 percent of the outer continental shelf, because our leaders are well-practiced in kill-the-drill efforts, and most politicians from our state - Democrats and Republicans alike, including Gov. Christie - have already told Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that his proposal is inherently reckless and potentially catastrophic.
These voices must only become louder, because this fight is about our economy, our future, and the stewardship of our cherished coastline.
Sure, it's a Nimby issue. Proof arrived a few days after Zinke's announcement, when he exempted Florida from drilling - presumably because President Trump realized that a spill off Palm Beach would be very bad for business at Mar-A-Lago.
It was also a sloppy kiss for Florida Gov. Rick Scott - a drilling advocate even after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster desecrated his Gulf coast beaches, whose upcoming Senate campaign will likely crash if he continues to put black sludge ahead of the voting public.
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So the Florida leases are already off the board because Zinke says "its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver."
Only an inexcusable ignorance would lead him to believe that this is unique to Florida.
The Jersey Shore has a $44 billion tourism industry, which supports a half-million jobs either directly or indirectly. That is 10 percent of our workforce.
It is home to more than $700 billion in coastal properties.
Our commercial fishing industry supports another 50,000 jobs and generates $8 billion annually, and our shores are home to one of the largest recreational fishing industries in the nation.
All of that would be imperiled by one spill off our coast.
Meanwhile, all the risk is on the shore communities, and all the rewards go to Big Oil.
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As Sen. Robert Menendez put it, the Zinke plan "is a gift for corporate polluters at the expense of our coastal economies."
No doubt, the proposal is merely the opening wager in a byzantine process - rigs may not pop up for another decade. But it's clear where all this is heading.
Just two weeks ago, congressional Republicans gave oil companies a $500 million tax break. That money - generated through a 9 cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil - was the main source of revenue for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which has been around since 1986.
This program that helped government respond quickly to oil accidents on land or offshore. But now the GOP has allowed the tax to expire.
So if there is ever another incident like the Deepwater Horizon tragedy - the largest marine spill in history, which caused $17 billion in damage to natural resources - it will be up to American taxpayers to clean up the mess left behind, not the oil companies themselves.
Other regulations put in place after that Gulf disaster, such as lowering liability caps, also were rolled back recently.
Moral of the story: It's a great time to be in the oil business, now that it has a champion in a president who at any time is willing to take a drunken swerve away from common sense.
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