Floridians Against Energy Dominance
For years, Republicans in Congress have championed a simple, unifying principle:
American energy dominance means producing more energy here at home, everywhere we are able, using every resource we have.
Under President Trump, that principle is no longer theoretical. It is policy. Federal lands are reopened. Pipelines restarted. Offshore leasing expanded. Gas prices fell, and American workers were put back in the driver’s seat.
Which is why the letter sent last week by Florida’s entire congressional delegation, led by Senator Rick Scott, is disappointing and hypocritical. It asks the President to keep Florida’s offshore waters “off the table” for oil and gas development and to reject any Interior Department proposal that would modify Florida’s moratorium.
The translation: the Florida delegation is asking the administration to exempt their state from the very energy strategy they praise everywhere else.
And it’s impossible to ignore the contradiction because the delegation has been among the loudest voices claiming that drilling, leasing, and expanding domestic supply are essential to lowering prices and securing America’s future.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, for example, has been forceful and direct: “We will unleash American energy again… Drill, Baby, Drill!”
Representative Aaron Bean celebrated the One Big Beautiful Bill because it: “unleashes American energy dominance by opening federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing.”
Representative Kat Cammack praised Trump for: “restoring energy dominance, cutting costs, and undoing years of Biden’s wreckage.”
Representative Brian Mast touted that Florida’s low gas prices this year are: “what American energy dominance looks like.”
And virtually every other Republican signatory to the letter has made the same argument in their own way:
- Lower prices come from more American energy.
- Energy independence comes from production, not restrictions.
- Reliability comes from expanding, not shrinking, our domestic resource base.
Those arguments are correct, and they represent the mainstream conservative policy consensus. And they have been proven right by real-world results.
Yet those same lawmakers are now asking the administration to make an exception when it comes to Florida’s coastline.
Here’s the deal: energy dominance only works if we treat energy production as a national responsibility. Texas cannot do all of it. Louisiana cannot do all of it. Alaska cannot do all of it.
A consistent national strategy cannot survive when one region says: “We support drilling, but someone else’s coastline should handle it.”
That is the logic of coastal Democrats, not of a party that claims energy dominance as a defining economic and geopolitical priority.
It is true that Florida has a tourism economy and military testing ranges. But so do other producing states. The Gulf of Mexico is managed with some of the strictest environmental and military coordination safeguards in the world.
Every offshore lease is subject to deep review, impact mitigation, and federal-state partnership.
The idea that Florida’s coast cannot be managed responsibly, while Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi can, is simply not supported by the evidence.
And importantly, Florida families rely on affordable fuel just as much as families in any other state. Blocking supply off the state’s own coastline ultimately harms the very people these policymakers represent.
If Republicans want to defeat the Left’s war on American energy, we cannot afford internal contradictions. We cannot ask working families in other states to bear the responsibility of production while one of the nation’s most energy-relevant coastlines remains permanently off-limits.
If the Florida delegation truly believes in American energy independence, lower prices, and national strength, the policies they claim to champion, then the right path is clear:
Support the administration’s efforts to expand offshore energy production. Not just in other states. In Florida too.
Anything less risks undermining the very progress Republicans have fought hard to restore.
December 11, 2025