President Joe Biden is preparing to issue a decree permanently banning new offshore oil and gas development in some US coastal waters, locking in difficult-to-revoke protections during his final weeks in the White House.
Biden is set within days to issue the executive order barring the sale of new drilling rights in portions of the country’s outer continental shelf, according to people familiar with the effort who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t public.
The move is certain to complicate President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitions to drive more domestic energy production. Unlike other executive actions that can be easily undone, Biden’s planned declaration is rooted in a 72-year-old law that gives the White House wide discretion to permanently protect US waters from oil and gas leasing without explicitly empowering presidents to revoke the designations.
The move responds to pressure from congressional Democrats and environmental groups who have lobbied Biden to “maximize permanent protections” against offshore drilling, arguing the action is essential to safeguard vulnerable coastal communities, protect marine ecosystems from oil spills and fight climate change.
White House spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment, and the Interior Department declined to comment on the matter.
Biden administration officials have been considering the approach for more than two years, though efforts intensified after Trump’s victory, as the outgoing president sought to enshrine new environmental measures before the end of his term. The fresh offshore protections are in line with recent Biden actions to protect areas from industrial mining and energy development, including a formal proposal issued Monday to thwart the sale of new oil, gas and geothermal leases in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.
The move would further burnish Biden’s green bona fides, deepening his record prioritizing conservation and fighting climate change while in office. Biden is already on track to protect more US lands and waters than any other president, even as he faces mounting calls to expand that record with new national monuments safeguarding culturally significant land in California. By contrast, Trump has vowed to unleash domestic production of oil and gas while rolling back environmental regulations that curb their consumption.
The full scope of Biden’s coming offshore protections wasn’t clear Thursday, but the designation is set to include waters considered critical to coastal resilience and the effort is meant to be targeted, said people familiar with the decision. Congressional Democrats and scores of environmental groups have urged Biden to make a sweeping declaration, though some recent deliberations have focused on parts of the Pacific Ocean near California and eastern Gulf of Mexico waters by Florida.
The declaration would not affect drilling and other activity on existing leases.
Trump Challenge
Trump is expected to order a reversal of the protections, but it’s not clear he will be successful. During his first term in office, Trump sought to revoke former President Barack Obama’s order to protect more than 125 million acres (50.6 million hectares) of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, but that move was rejected by a federal district court in 2019.
Trump, himself, has actually used the same statute to block oil and gas leasing in waters near Florida and along the Southeast US in a bid to appeal to voters in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign.
Supporters of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which governs offshore oil and gas development, note that Congress included a provision giving presidents wide discretion to permanently protect waters from leasing, but it didn’t explicitly grant them the authority to undo those designations.
For decades, presidents have invoked the law’s withdrawal provision to preserve walrus feeding grounds, US Arctic waters and other sensitive marine resources, beginning with former President Dwight Eisenhower, who in 1960 created the Key Largo Coral Reef Preserve that remains protected today. Former President George H.W. Bush also invoked the provision to block oil leasing along the West Coast, Northeast US and southern Florida for a decade.
Though presidents have modified decisions from their predecessors to exempt areas from oil leasing, courts have never validated a complete reversal — and until Trump, no president had even attempted one.
Industry Reaction
Conservationists said the move allows the US to meet its future energy needs without jeopardizing areas important for national security, coastal communities and marine life.
“President Biden has a historic opportunity to build on the legacy of former Democratic and Republican presidents who protected our coasts from new offshore drilling,” said Joseph Gordon, campaign director with the advocacy group Oceana. “Our coastlines are home to millions of Americans and support billions of dollars of economic activity that depend on a healthy coast, abundant wildlife and thriving fisheries.”
Biden has already curtailed opportunities for new offshore oil and gas development using potentially less enduring measures. His administration designed a program for selling offshore leases that allows just three auctions over the next five years, a record low. However, Trump is expected to rewrite that leasing plan using an administrative process that could take at least a year, and Republican lawmakers are considering ordering more offshore oil lease sales as a way to raise revenue to offset the cost of extending tax cuts.
Oil industry advocates have warned against new restrictions, arguing the world will need fossil fuels for decades to come — and the US produces them more cleanly than other countries. Nearly a century after it was first drilled, the Gulf of Mexico remains a key source of US oil and gas, providing about 14% of domestic output today — enough that if it were a country, it would rank among the world’s top 12 oil producers.
New restrictions would represent an attack on American energy, said Daniel Turner, founder of the Power The Future group that supports workers in the oil, coal and natural gas industries. “President Trump should overturn this order on the first day,” he said, “and quickly usher Biden’s green agenda into the dustbin of history.”
Offshore drilling remains a politically divisive topic. Though Republicans tend to be more supportive, the Pew Research Center last May found fewer than half of survey respondents backed more offshore oil and gas drilling. The prospect is particularly controversial in some coastal states, where leaders from both parties have warned that oil spills could cripple tourism-based economies.
