U.S. President Joe Biden will ban new offshore oil and gas development along most U.S. coastlines, a decision that President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to boost domestic energy production, may find difficult to reverse.
The White House said on Monday Biden will use his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska. The ban will affect 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of ocean.
Biden said the move was aligned with both his climate change agenda and his goal to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
He also invoked the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the low drilling potential of the areas included in the ban did not justify the public health and economic risks of future leasing.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement. “It is not worth the risks.”
The announcement comes as Trump has pledged to reverse Biden’s conservation and climate change policies when he takes office later this month. During his term, Biden limited new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, drawing criticism from drilling states and companies.
But the Lands Act, which allows presidents to withdraw areas from mineral leasing and drilling, does not grant them the legal authority to overturn prior bans, according to a 2019 court ruling. That order came in response to Trump’s effort to reverse Arctic and Atlantic Ocean withdrawals made by former President Barack Obama at the end of his presidency.
Reuters
