Florida offshore drilling reactions; Scott healthcare plan

A U.S. representative from South Florida has been indicted on charges related to the alleged misuse of disaster funds, and Florida lawmakers remember former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.

The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

Since taking office for a second time in January, Trump has systematically reversed former President Joe Biden’s focus on slowing climate change to pursue what the Republican calls U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country.

The offshore drilling proposal drew bipartisan pushback from lawmakers in Florida, where Republican Sen. Rick Scott said the state’s coasts “must remain off the table for oil drilling.” In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic, called the administration’s plan “idiotic.”

Tourism and access to clean beaches are key parts of the economy in both states.

Sen. Scott, a Trump ally, helped persuade officials in Trump’s first term to drop a similar offshore plan in 2018 when Scott was governor. Scott and Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody introduced legislation this month to maintain the drilling moratorium from Trump’s first term.

Newsom, who often touts the state’s status as a global climate leader, said in response to Thursday’s announcement that California would “use every tool at our disposal to protect our coastline.”

California has been a leader in restricting offshore drilling since an infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill helped spark the modern environmental movement. While no new federal leases have been offered since the mid-1980s, drilling from existing platforms continues.

Newsom expressed support for greater offshore controls after a 2021 spill off Huntington Beach and has backed a congressional effort to ban new offshore drilling on the West Coast.

A Texas-based company, with support from the Trump administration, is seeking to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara damaged by a 2015 oil spill. The administration has hailed the plan by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. as the kind of project Trump wants to increase U.S. energy production.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term to reverse Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.

Scott announces alternative health care plan

Sen. Rick Scott introduced a proposal to address rising health care costs as subsidies affiliated with the Affordable Care Act are set to end at the end of the year.

The plan would use HSA-style “Trump Health Freedom Accounts” that families could use to help pay for healthcare. The funds sent to these accounts can be applied to premiums for health insurance as long as they don’t fund abortions.

“Obamacare has failed to deliver on its promises: families didn’t get to keep their insurance plans, couldn’t keep their doctors, and didn’t save money – and neither did the federal government. Instead, Obamacare created a system that left American families with fewer choices, higher costs, and health care that doesn’t meet their needs. That’s obvious, and it’s why President Trump and the American people are demanding solutions to fix this broken system,” Scott said.

“My new bill makes simple fixes to Obamacare that will make a world of difference to American families by making Americans the consumer, not the government, while giving them options and transparency,” he said.

The deal to reopen the government signed by the president last week did not include a key demand from Democrats — an extension of Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies.

Democrats like Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, have warned that without that extension, many families will face skyrocketing health insurance premiums in 2026.

Some Kentuckians, said McGarvey, are already dropping their health insurance because it’s too expensive.

“I had business owners just this week tell me that they’re watching their premiums for the two of them go from $625 per month to $2,501 per month,” McGarvey said Friday. “That’s a $2,000 increase. Nobody can afford that. We have to do something about this.”

This year alone, more than 125,000 Kentuckians have received coverage through kynect Qualified Health Plans, according to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Kynect is the state-based marketplace for the Affordable Care Act.

From Nov. 1, when the open enrollment period began, to Nov. 7, about 1,500 Kentuckians had changed those plans, about 1,200 canceled their 2026 coverage, and there were an estimated 800 new enrollees—a number that lags behind the pace of previous years, according to the cabinet.

It’s not clear from the data exactly why Kentuckians changed or canceled plans.

On Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told CNN that House Democrats have introduced legislation to extend the ACA tax credits for three years.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., addressed the possibility of a vote on the credits.

“Am I gonna guarantee a vote on ACA unreformed COVID-era subsidies that is just a boondoggle to insurance companies and robs the taxpayer? We got a lot of work to do on that. The Republicans would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible.”