Fisherman checks his lines near oil rig in Alabama (AP photo)

It’s hard to imagine which Atlantic coastal state would remain subject to President Trump’s drill-baby-drill directive if Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is forced to apply the tourism-dependent exemption he dreamed up for the Republican governor of Florida (home of Mar a Lago).


WHYY News reports today that Delaware’s Attorney General has warned Zinke to measure his state by the same standard or see his state in court.


According to Inside Climate News, the top Democrat on a U.S. Senate committee that oversees the Interior Department said Zinke’s actions may have violated requirements of a law governing federal offshore areas. 


She requested that all correspondence between the department and the State of Florida regarding the drilling plan be turned over to the committee for review. 


Meanwhile, ten U.S. Senators from New England also introduced legislation Thursday to bar offshore drilling along their stretch of the East Coast. Officials from New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington have voiced opposition to drilling off their coasts, and lawmakers from both political parties have called for their states to be removed from Zinke’s plan. 


Related: Oops, ‘drill anywhere’ means nowhere near Mar-a-Lago

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