Gulf lawmakers aim to extend state borders to 9 miles offshore

By Alton Wallace
The Center Square

A bipartisan coalition of Gulf Coast lawmakers is pushing to change a 73-year-old law that limits their states’ maritime boundaries to 3 miles offshore, potentially reshaping the regulation of local fisheries and generating billions of dollars in tax revenues from offshore energy and minerals leases.

Introduced by U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell, R-Miss., and a group of legislators that includes Reps. Troy Carter Sr., D-La., Clay Higgins, R-La., and Shomari Figures, D-Ala., the Offshore Parity Act would extend state waters from 3 nautical miles out to 9 – matching the long-held boundaries of Texas and Florida.

This change would provide Gulf states full economic control over new leases issued for traditional oil and gas drilling, seabed mineral mining, and permanent offshore carbon sequestration.

“For too long, Mississippi and our Gulf Coast neighbors have operated under an outdated and unequal system,” Ezell said when introducing the legislation in April. “This bill is about fairness.”

Under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, coastal states were mostly restricted to 3 nautical miles of offshore territory. The law allowed Gulf states to claim up to 9 miles if those wider boundaries existed upon admission to the United States.

Florida and Texas successfully secured the wider 9-mile limits by proving their founding state constitutions and statutes had carried over historical Spanish maritime boundaries. A 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Louisiana rejected similar historic claims from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, restricting those three states to the narrower 3-mile strip of state waters.

“This is a critical step toward equality, ensuring that Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have the same authority over their waters as Texas and Florida,” said Carter, who represents a district in southeast Louisiana that includes New Orleans. “This bill will empower us to manage our energy resources, protect our coastal communities, and strengthen our fisheries – securing economic benefits for our states.”

Higgins, representing southwest Louisiana, noted the legislation would establish a uniform regulatory playing field across the Gulf.

“The expansion from 3 to 9 miles of state waters would provide Louisiana with greater control and economic benefit from its offshore resources,” Higgins added.

While existing federal leases inside the expanded state waters would continue to generate revenues allocated by a formula to the U.S. Treasury and state and local governments, the distributions would change for future tracts. Upon the bill’s enactment, all rental fees, bonuses and production royalties generated by these new leases would be paid directly to Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama rather than the federal government.

In neighboring Texas, the General Land Office recently executed a 271,000-acre lease with ExxonMobil for carbon storage in state water. The land office withheld the contract’s financial terms and duration following a formal request from ExxonMobil to protect the proprietary data under the Texas Public Information Act.

At a June subcommittee hearing, the U.S. Department of the Interior submitted a formal statement opposing the legislation, citing complex administrative, jurisdictional and fiscal challenges to transferring federal offshore authority to the states. Interior Department officials also warned that redrawing the boundaries would divert significant energy and minerals leasing revenues away from the federal treasury.

Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Executive Director Joe Spraggins told federal lawmakers that increased access to abundant shrimping territories in the north-central water of the gulf would benefit the state’s commercial fishing fleet.

“Our local shrimpers need to be able to go out 9 miles so they can be able to shrimp and not have a federal permit to do that,” Spraggins said. “This would allow us to be able to have shrimp and fish on our docks with us almost year-round.”

The bill awaits an official date for a full committee markup, which advocates hope to secure before the end of the summer work period.

On Monday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management set an Aug. 12 date for the third offshore oil and gas lease sale mandated in July 2025 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The sale will open approximately 80.4 million acres in the Gulf of America to bidding.