California lawmakers on Thursday denounced the Trump administration’s proposal to open up six offshore lease sales in federal waters off the California coast, with Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the proposal “idiotic” and “reckless,” asserting it will not gain any traction in the state.

The development follows reports earlier this month of a leaked draft of the plan, when Newsom — speaking from the U.N. climate summit in Brazil — reiterated his opposition, calling the proposal “dead on arrival” and referring to President Donald Trump as “the polluted heart of the climate crisis.”

“This reckless attempt to sell out our coastline to his Big Oil donors is dead in the water,” Newsom said in a statement released shortly after the announcement on the plan was dropped.

“Californians remember the environmental and economic devastation of past oil spills. For decades, California has stood firm in our opposition to new offshore drilling, and nothing will change that. We will use every tool at our disposal to protect our coastline.”

The offshore drilling plan is part of a broader proposal that includes up to 34 potential lease sales nationwide across 21 Outer Continental Shelf planning areas. The draft program would expand oil and gas leasing along the Pacific Coast for the first time in decades, in waters typically beginning roughly three miles offshore.

California has not seen a federal offshore oil or gas lease approved off its coast since 1984, and state leaders have consistently resisted new leasing efforts, pointing to the threat of spills and the long-term harm they pose to coastal ecosystems. One of the defining events underpinning that resistance is the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, a catastrophe that fouled miles of shoreline, killed thousands of seabirds and sickened marine mammals.

While oil and gas industry groups welcomed the move, California Attorney General Rob Bonta released a statement shortly afterward, warning Trump that California is not “a rich man’s playground” and reaffirming that his office fully opposes the plan.

The sentiment that California is prepared to take the matter to court was echoed by other state leaders during a press conference on Thursday, where California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) joined the virtual event and voiced strong opposition to the proposal.

When asked whether defeating the plan was more likely to happen in court than in Congress, Huffman said the effort would hinge on lawsuits, public pressure and ultimately changing who controls Congress. “It’ll happen when we take back the House of Representatives and the Senate in little over a year,” Huffman said.

While emphasizing that many Republican voters in coastal communities strongly oppose the plan, Huffman called elected Republican lawmakers in Congress “gutless” and referred to them as “a bunch of puppets” who will not challenge Trump’s proposals.

“Californians remember every spill, every dead dolphin and sea otter, every fishing season wrecked by contamination. We built stronger, cleaner, more resilient coastal communities — and a burgeoning $1.7 trillion coastal economy — in spite of all that,” Huffman said in a press release.

“And we’re not going to stand by and watch it get destroyed by Trump’s oil and gas pet projects.”

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