Freeing up offshore oil production could lead to 65 billion barrel increase in US oil

Reuters:

The Trump administration’s proposal to open up almost all of U.S. offshore waters to oil and gas drilling could unlock up to 65 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), attracting billions of dollars in investment, consultancy Rystad Energy said.

Last week, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said a draft program would make over 90 percent of the outer continental shelf’s total acreage available for leasing to drillers, a national record.

"Looking purely at areas that are potentially going to come out of restriction, we are talking about something closer to 65 billion boe," Sonia Passos, senior analyst at Rystad, a major independent consultancy tracking the sector, said in a note last week. (bit.ly/2CJpiyw)

That figure excludes resource potential from western and central areas of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, but includes the eastern region, she said.
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Some states are already balking at offshore production off their coast.  I think the best way to deal with that is to put a 50 cent a gallon tax on gas sold in those states.  That should give them some incentive to be more reasonable about offshore production.