Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has proposed a sweeping new offshore drilling plan aimed at opening huge swaths of the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans to oil exploration as part of the Trump administrations plan to transform the United States into a fossil fuel juggernaut.

The draft plan released Thursday includes 25 of 26 offshore planning areas and makes available for lease roughly 90 percent of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The administration has identified 47 potential lease sales, including 19 off the coast of Alaska and 12 in the Gulf of Mexico, Zinke told reporters Thursday.

This is the largest number of lease sales ever proposed for the national offshore leasing program, Zinke said.

This is a clear difference between energy weakness and energy dominance, he added. And under President Trump, we are going to have the strongest energy policy and become the strongest energy superpower. We certainly have the assets to do that.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at opening up the now-protected areas. The order instructed the Interior Department to review the current five-year oil and gas leasing program, finalized by the Obama administration in November , and to write new rules for offshore oil and gas drilling under the guise of an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy.

If approved, the plan would be in effect from 2019 to 2024. It would replace the current leasing program, which runs through 2022 and was approved following an extensive, multiyear review.

Zinke stressed that the proposal is the beginning of a process that would allow for public input from states, local communities and congressional delegations. For eight years under the Obama administration, he said, responsible energy development took a back seat to, in many cases, special interest groups.

Zinke also dismissed environmental concerns, arguing as he often does that it is better to produce energy in the U.S. under reasonable regulations than to produce it overseas with none.

It will deepen also our commitment to environmental stewardship because we do it right, he said.