(OPINION) President Joe Biden has banned all future offshore oil and gas drilling in a last-ditch effort to stop Donald Trump from keeping his promise to expand offshoring drilling.
It’s a blatant move to try and sabotage the incoming Trump administration as the MAGA die hard has pledged to reverse Biden’s climate change policies when he takes office in 14 days.
Trump campaigned on a ‘drill baby, drill’ slogan and has pledged to throw out all of Biden’s green energy policies on Day One.
In an effort to get ahead of Trump, Biden declared he is using his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to block all future oil and natural gas leasing in most U.S. coastal waters.
The ban would stop offshoring drilling in all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska.
Biden’s order will not affect large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs, but it would protect coastlines along California, Florida and other states from future drilling.
The action – which protect more than 625 million acres of federal waters – could be difficult for Trump to unwind, since it will likely require an act of Congress to repeal.
Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt mocked Biden’s move writing on X: ‘Joe Biden clearly wants high gas prices to be his legacy.’
She went on to slam the ‘a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices.’
‘Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.’
During his term, Biden limited new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, drawing criticism from drilling states and companies.
But Trump has vowed to establish what he calls American ‘energy dominance’ around the world as he seeks to boost oil and gas drilling and move away from Biden’s focus on climate change.
Biden said the move was aligned with both his climate change agenda and his goal to conserve 30 per cent of American 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.
‘As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,’ he added.
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.
Trump signed a memorandum in 2020 directing the Interior secretary to prohibit drilling in the waters off both Florida coasts, and off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina until 2032.
The action came after he initially moved to vastly expand offshore drilling, before retreating amid widespread opposition in Florida and other coastal states. Biden’s decision will protect the same area with no expiration.
In balancing multiple uses of America’s oceans, Biden said it was clear that the areas he is withdrawing from fossil fuel use show ‘relatively minimal potential’ that does not justify possible environmental, public health and economic risks that would come from new leasing and drilling.
