President Biden announced an 11th-hour executive action on Monday that bans new drilling and further oil and natural gas development on more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal and offshore waters.
Biden used the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing. The move effectively limits President-elect Trump’s ability to revoke the action, potentially requiring Congress to intervene to grant Trump authority to place federal waters back into development.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement. “It is not worth the risks. As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.”
The decision was met with quick condemnation from Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who called it “a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices.” Leavitt vowed that “we will drill, baby, drill.”
Ron Neal, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America Offshore Committee, slammed the move as “significant and catastrophic,” arguing that it “represents a major attack on the oil and natural gas industry” and would “severely limit the potential for exploration and development in new areas” and “choking the long-term survivability of the industry.”
Trump himself had promised during his 2024 campaign to deliver American “energy dominance” on the world stage, as he looked to bolster U.S. oil and gas drilling.
