President Biden on Monday announced a permanent halt to new oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters, saying he was taking the action because drilling poses unnecessary risks to the environment, public health and coastal communities .
The ban is part of an effort to bolster Biden’s environmental legacy, which some experts believe cannot be quickly reversed by President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has strong support from the oil and gas industry and pledges to expand drilling.
Biden also plans to announce on Tuesday the establishment of two new national monuments in California to protect more than 800,000 acres of ecologically fragile and culturally important tribal lands.
Biden has called blocking offshore drilling on about 20% of the nearly 3.2 billion acres of seabed controlled by the United States a top climate change priority. He relied on an obscure provision in a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which he said gave him the authority to enforce the executive order. The measure blocks new drilling along the entire East Coast; the Pacific coast of California, Oregon and Washington state; in the eastern Gulf of Mexico; and in Alaska’s northern Bering Sea.
In many ways, the ban is symbolic. There has been virtually no oil and gas exploration off the California coast since a massive oil spill near Santa Barbara in 1969 that shocked the nation. Currently, drilling in federal Arctic waters is limited to a single facility in the Beaufort Sea. Trump personally ordered a 10-year moratorium on drilling along the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Florida as he courted voters in those states during his 2020 reelection campaign. Drilling has been suspended.
“The relatively small fossil fuel potential of the areas I am vacating does not justify the environmental, public health and economic risks that new leasing and drilling could pose,” Biden said in a statement.
The executive order will not halt new drilling in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, some of which was authorized by Congress. The Gulf region accounts for nearly 15% of the U.S.’s oil production and approximately 97% of its offshore natural gas production.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have long known: Drilling along these shores can cause irreversible damage to the places we cherish and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. ,” Mr. Biden said.
“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we transition to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” he said.
In his reasoning, he also cited the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, when a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing 11 workers and causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Biden called it a “solemn reminder of the costs and risks of offshore drilling.”
Trump, who has mocked global warming, has pledged to undo Biden’s climate policies, withdraw the United States from the global fight to prevent the planet from overheating, and allow the oil industry almost unfettered access to America’s public lands and waters.
On Monday, Trump called Biden’s move “ridiculous” and said he would reverse the ban.
“I would lift the ban immediately,” he said on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show.
The United States currently produces more oil than any country at any time in history. It is also the world’s largest natural gas producer, and a leading exporter of LNG.
Biden campaigned on a promise to halt new drilling on federal lands and waters.
But courts and Congress blocked the plan. Biden approved an $8 billion oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, called Willow, as part of a deal to win a climate law vote that would allow lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
But he has allowed the fewest offshore lease sales in history — just three over the next five years — and banned drilling and mining in Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada and other areas.
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., is one of several Democrats urging Biden to limit drilling. He said on Monday the fight had “paid off.”
“This is a common-sense win for everyone who depends on clean, thriving oceans,” Mr. Pallone said. “Protecting our coastal waters from the impacts of oil drilling protects our fishing and tourism economies as well as the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”
Environmental groups say blocking new drilling could also reduce the burning of fossil fuels, which produce pollution that dangerously heats the planet.
The International Energy Agency has found that new oil and gas development must stop if the world is to remain within safe limits from global warming. In 2015, nearly every country on the planet agreed to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The Earth has already warmed by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius. The year that just ended was the hottest on record.
Mark S. Davis, director of the Environmental Law Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, called the ban a “big deal.” Coastal communities often face the threat that drilling moratoriums could be lifted, and a permanent ban would bring long-term confidence, particularly for tourism and fisheries.
“President Biden is drawing a line in the sand and saying, the era of uncertainty, if you will, is over and I’m closing the door on exploration and production in these areas,” Mr. Davis said.
Oil and gas executives say Biden’s ban could be catastrophic for the industry’s future.
“As global demand continues to grow, there is always uncertainty about where supply will come from,” said Eric Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore oil, gas and wind energy producers. “You don’t want to give up something that strengthens our Economic and national security choices. This is about ensuring we have a well-thought-out long-term energy policy that gives us the flexibility to adjust when demand conditions require it.
The ban will not affect the offshore wind industry, which the Biden administration has strongly supported.
Milito called the ban “clearly political.”
Ron Neal, chairman of the offshore committee of the American Independent Petroleum Association, an oil and gas trade group, called the ban “significant and disastrous.”
Trump’s promised repeal may be challenged by environmental groups, and several legal experts said Biden’s ban is likely to remain in place.
While Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act provides the president with broad leeway to ban drilling, it does not contain language that would allow any president to revoke the ban.
Mr. Trump has tried and failed to repeal such bans. In 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama banned offshore drilling in about 98 percent of federally owned Arctic waters and 3.8 million acres of Atlantic waters that are home to unique deep-water corals and rare fish.
Mr. Trump rescinded the order, and environmental groups led by the nonprofit Earthjustice filed a lawsuit. In 2019, a federal district court judge in Alaska ruled that the ban could not be lifted without congressional approval.
“There’s no question that Biden has the ability to do this, but there’s a big legal question about whether Trump can undo it,” said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
While the case may have been a strong precedent for Biden, others noted that it was never fully resolved.
The Trump administration appealed. But then Mr. Biden won the 2020 election. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to dismiss the case, and the Biden administration reissued Obama’s ban. Additionally, some attorneys believe the Alaska ruling applies only to that state.
“I think it’s an open question and one that the new administration will certainly continue to address,” said Ann D. Navaro, a partner at Bracewell, a law firm that advises energy clients.
Republicans who will control both chambers of Congress in the new Congress may also try to amend the 1953 law to allow the president to reverse his predecessor’s drilling ban.
However, it would require at least 60 votes in the Senate to clear procedural hurdles, which would be a challenge for Republicans who only hold a three-seat majority.
The party could also try to take advantage of the upcoming budget reconciliation process by asking the Interior Ministry to provide leases in areas covered by the ban. This only requires a simple majority.
But Davis said Republicans in coastal states seemed unlikely to support the measure.
“An authorization would require the congressional delegations of Florida and the Carolinas to agree. “They never did, as President Trump found when he initially proposed opening these states,” Mr. Davis said. He immediately met with strong opposition.
He called the oil industry protests “drama.”
“Their job is to be able to go wherever they want, whenever they want,” Mr. Davis said. But, he added, of the areas banned by Mr Biden: “They don’t really expect to go there. There’s no ‘drill, baby, drill’ pressure in any of these areas.
