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Former Gov. O'Malley: Offshore Drilling Plan 'A Big Mistake'

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- President Barack Obama's plan to allow offshore drilling along a wide area of the Atlantic Coast is "a big mistake," says former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is considering a presidential run in 2016.

O'Malley, a Democrat, wrote about his opposition to the proposal in an op-ed published in The New York Times on Monday.

"The Obama administration's whiplash decision last week to allow oil and gas companies to drill along a wide area of the Atlantic Coast is a big mistake," O'Malley wrote.

O'Malley cited the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster as a reminder that the benefits of drilling don't outweigh threats to local economies, public health and the environment. Eleven workers were killed in the 2010 explosion, which triggered the release of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

O'Malley wrote that climate change is likely to cause increasingly powerful hurricanes, which could damage or destroy oil rigs. The term-limited former governor who left office last month also noted that oil prices are at record lows, and the United States is the world's top producer of natural gas and third biggest producer of crude oil.

"There is simply no compelling economic or security reason to expose the communities of the Atlantic Coast to the threats offshore drilling presents," O'Malley wrote.

It's not the first time O'Malley has disagreed publicly with Obama. Last summer, he criticized a White House proposal to deal with the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border that could have accelerated the deportation of unaccompanied immigrant children.

(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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