Last week, President Joe Biden moved to ban all future offshore oil and natural gas drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s North Bering Sea.
In the final weeks of his term, Biden has made it clear that he is intent on protecting the environment in the wake of the increased climate change impacts seen in 2024. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to undo the ban immediately, accusing the president of making the transition as difficult as possible.
Trump has criticized the ban, saying that he will reverse it.
“It’s ridiculous. I’ll unban it immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately,” Trump said on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
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The ban is also an attempt by the Biden administration to protect the president’s climate legacy from the energy policies that will follow in the coming administration.
Biden will use an obscure provision of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which gives the president the power to withdraw unleased lands from the Outer Continental Shelf indefinitely.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, unlike other executive actions, was written to make a presidential action under its authority permanent.
According to the White House fact sheet, this move blocks drilling in more than 625 million acres of U.S. oceans, specifically coastlines along California and Florida. The ban does not affect areas where oil and gas development is currently underway, and it would not affect large regions of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs.
After this sweeping move, the fact sheet provides details supporting Biden’s conservation of more lands and waters than any other U.S. president.
“Now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” Biden said. “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
