US President Joe Biden on Monday announced a ban on new drilling operations in a vast marine area, aiming to block Donald Trump from fulfilling his electoral promise to boost hydrocarbon production.
The Democratic president, who will hand over power on January 20 to his Republican successor, decided to implement an indefinite ban on new drilling in marine areas totaling more than 2.5 million square kilometers.
This ban will affect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and areas off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Strait.
During a radio interview on Monday, President-elect Trump affirmed that he would revoke the ban "immediately."
Biden said, "Now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren." He emphasized, “the relatively minimal fossil fuel potential in the areas I am withdrawing do not justify the environmental, public health and economic risks that would come from new leasing and drilling.”
“We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low. These are false choices,” he added.
The White House announced on Monday that Biden would use his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect all federal waters off the East and West Coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and parts of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska. The ban will affect 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of ocean.
This announcement comes as Trump has vowed to reverse Biden’s conservation and climate change policies when he takes office later this month. Throughout his term, Biden has limited new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, facing criticism from states and companies involved in drilling.
However, a 2019 court ruling indicated that the law governing offshore drilling allows a president to withdraw areas from drilling but does not allow a president to revoke those withdrawals.
The executive order counters Trump’s initiatives to reverse former President Obama’s Arctic and Atlantic Ocean protections at the end of his presidency. Trump even used the law to block the sale of offshore drilling rights in the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida until 2032. Biden’s order aims to protect the same areas without an expiration date.
