President Biden Institutes Widespread Offshore Drilling Ban
On Jan. 6, the Biden White House announced it will block about 625 million acres of offshore areas from future oil and gas drilling. Affected areas include those in the northern Bering Sea, along the West Coast from California to Oregon, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, plus the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida.
As The Hill noted, President Joe Biden’s announcement does not target areas that are major hubs for fossil fuel development, which are the vast majority of U.S. offshore oil and gas production comes from the central and western Gulf of Mexico. Still, the area placed under the ban is the largest ever formally taken off the table for drilling by a president. The Biden White House said the ban is designed to permanently protect relatively pristine offshore areas, to the benefit of states dependent on fisheries and tourism, and to protect wildlife.
Importantly, the White House opted not to issue the new policy through executive order, instead citing president’s authority under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which governs energy leasing activities for submerged lands under United States control that are beyond three miles from shore. This 1953 law allows the sitting president to permanently withdraw parts of the Outer Continental Shelf from leasing activities without providing an option for another president to undo it. In other words, the new policy could hinder President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to quickly scale fossil fuel production.
Congress may have to step in and work with the new president to reverse this problematic moratorium. Stay tuned to Connecting the Dots to hear what happens in the coming months.