With just two weeks remaining as president, Joe Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling for the entire U.S. East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico and sections of the North Bering Sea in Alaska. The move will ban fossil fuel extraction from nearly 2.5 million square kilometers (977,000 square miles) of federal water, an area larger than Texas and Alaska combined.
More than 90% of Alaska’s federal water will still be open to drilling as well as the central and western Gulf of Mexico. The exempted regions are the most productive areas in the country for offshore oil and gas. The areas included in the ban are not central to U.S. oil production. There are currently no federal leases on the U.S. East Coast and there hasn’t been a federal sale off the California coast since 1984.
The move will only affect leases for new offshore drilling and not projects currently underway, so the ban is “not particularly consequential for U.S. exploration and production going forward,” Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told CNN.
Nonetheless, fossil fuel interests say the move could hamstring their ability to ensure a steady supply of domestic oil and gas. In a statement, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said, “We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”
In a news conference, president-elect Donald Trump vowed to undo the ban: “I will reverse it immediately.” He also said he plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Reversing the ban would require action by Congress, a tall order. California Representative Jared Huffman described the move as “Trump-proof” in a statement. Adding, “We know the President-elect will do everything in his power to enact his ‘drill baby drill’ agenda, but fortunately for us all, handing our oceans over to Big Oil billionaires will be off the table.”
Though the regions recently protected were not under threat of oil and gas development, environmental groups applauded the move as a way to protect marine wildlife and coastal communities.
“By not allowing these public waters to be sold off to the highest corporate bidder, President Biden has put people and nature over polluters,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.
In a statement announcing the move, President Biden highlighted his environmental legacy of conserving 670 million acres (271 million hectares) of American land and water.
“Protecting America’s coasts and ocean is the right thing to do and will help communities and the economy to flourish for generations to come,” President Biden said.
Banner image of federal waters withdrawn from oil and gas leasing in the continental U.S. courtesy of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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