Biden Bans Oil Drilling in Huge Coastal Areas Ahead of Trump Inauguration

The Biden Administration on Monday put more than 625 million acres of the U.S. coastal areas off limits for offshore drilling in a move that incoming President Donald Trump may find difficult to reverse.

President Joe Biden – using his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act – is issuing two Presidential Memoranda to protect all U.S. Outer Continental Shelf areas off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and natural gas leasing.

The withdrawals of all these areas from federal offshore oil and gas leases have no expiration date. They also prohibit all future oil and natural gas leasing in the areas withdrawn, the White House said.

The areas off limits to drilling are the entire eastern U.S. Atlantic coast and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Coast along California, Oregon, and Washington, and the remaining portion of the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area in Alaska.

In a statement, President Biden commented,

“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 also invoked the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, calling it “a solemn reminder of the costs and risks of offshore drilling to the health and resilience of our coasts and fisheries and underscores the importance of the legal protections I am putting in place today.”

The American Petroleum Institute (API) slammed Biden’s decision as yet another politically motivated move of the outgoing administration.

“American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers said.

“We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing,” Sommers added.

Incoming President Trump, meanwhile, has already made his U.S. energy policy priorities known—support for fossil fuels, and repeal of some of President Biden’s environmental-oriented measures, including the pause on new LNG permitting and the minimum possible offshore oil and gas lease sales mandated by Congress.