Biden’s offshore drilling ban extends to the entire US East coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.
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US President Joe Biden has issued a decree that permanently bans new offshore oil and gas development across 625 million acres of US coastal waters. The move comes just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, a climate denier, takes office with the promise to expand fossil fuel production in the country.
The ban, which has no expiration date, concerns all future oil and natural gas leasing in an area that extends to the entire US East coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.
“President Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential,” a White House statement read.
Offshore drilling raises environmental concerns due to the risks of oil spills, habitat destruction, pollution, and potential harm to marine life and coastal ecosystems.
On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Biden is using “costly and ridiculous Executive Orders on the Green New Scam and other money wasting Hoaxes” to hinder the presidential transition, though he did not explicitly mentioning the offshore drilling ban.
Meanwhile, the president elect’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, blamed the “radical left environmental extremist[s]” in Biden’s administration for the “disgraceful” and “radical” decision to ban offshore drilling, an act she said was designed to “exact political revenge” on Trump voters and to slow down Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mandate.
Speaking on a radio show after the ban was announced, Trump said he would “unban it immediately,” though it might no be easy.
In contrast to many executive actions that can be easily reversed, Biden’s offshore drilling ban is rooted in a long-standing 72-year-old law, which grants the White House extensive authority to permanently shield US waters from oil and gas leasing without explicitly providing presidents with the ability to retract these protections once they are established.
Instead, reversing the ban would likely need an act of Congress, which is now led by a slim and divided Republican majority.
With the move, Biden has now effectively protected more US lands and waters than any other president.
“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. It is not worth the risks,” Biden said in a statement. He cited the need to prevent “irreversible damage” like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest spill of oil in the history of marine oil drilling operations.
By contrast, Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax, is an avowed friend of the fossil fuel industry, from whom he reportedly demanded $1 billion in campaign funds at a fundraising dinner last spring, promising in exchange to gut environmental regulations.
He has also pledged to reverse Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest climate bill in the country’s history, along with several other climate policies. While a full reversal of the IRA is unlikely, Trump could attempt to change tax credit provisions that have yet to be finalized and are still in progress.
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