President Joe Biden announced Monday that he would ban new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of America’s coastline — a move that won’t slow fossil fuel production but could tee up a battle over the country’s energy future.
The decision would block the sale of new oil and gas leases across 625 million acres of ocean. The oil industry is pushing for a swift reversal. But President-elect Donald Trump won’t be able to undo it with a stroke of a pen when he takes power.
Instead, revoking the ban would probably require an act of Congress, which is now led by a slim Republican majority and closely divided along partisan lines.
The move starkly illustrates the contrast between Biden and Trump on energy policy. Biden aims to bolster his environmental legacy during his remaining days in office, while Trump has promised “energy dominance” and the rollback of climate policies.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s team has lambasted Biden, calling the move “political revenge.”
“Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will ‘drill, baby, drill,’” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, quoting Trump.
But Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement that Biden is making “bold and enduring changes that recognize the impact of oil and gas drilling on our nation’s coastlines.”
Biden is blocking new drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the North Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast. There is minimal oil and gas production in those areas. The federal government has not allowed drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, since the early 1990s, for example.
“The environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh any limited fossil fuel resource potential,” the administration said in the statement, which also said the withdrawal was the largest in U.S. history.
The Biden administration stressed that production in the western Gulf of Mexico, untouched by Biden’s order, is at an “all-time high.” The western Gulf is where the lion’s share of offshore oil production occurs and accounts for about 14 percent of U.S. crude production.
In fiscal 2023, the outer continental shelf produced approximately 675 million barrels of oil and 796 billion cubic feet of gas. Overall, the U.S. is producing historic amounts of oil and gas — and Biden’s order is unlikely to change that.
“It is all about symbols and the Biden administration has been long on symbolism and short on any substance on either side,” Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell who represents clients in the oil and gas industry as well as renewables.
Nevertheless, oil and gas leaders have responded with outrage.
The Independent Petroleum Association called it “a major attack.” The American Petroleum Institute said Biden’s move shows his “misguided approach” to energy. And the National Ocean Industries Association deemed it a “strategic error.”
In a statement Sunday, API said reversing Biden’s move should be a “top priority” for Congress.
Still, the oil and gas industry also stressed it doesn’t want to drill in most of the areas Biden is putting off-limits.
“It’s crucial for the federal government to maintain the flexibility to adapt its energy policy, especially in response to unexpected global changes like the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said Erik Milito, president of NOIA, which represents major offshore drillers like BP, Hess and Exxon Mobil. “Blanket bans only serve to shift energy production and economic opportunities abroad, benefiting countries like Russia at our expense.”
‘Epic ocean victory’
Environmental groups cast Biden’s move as striking a blow against offshore oil and gas drilling and nudging along the transition to clean energy.
Joseph Gordon, Oceana’s campaign director, called it “an epic ocean victory.” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous echoed that sentiment.
“There will never be a safe way to desecrate our waters,” Jealous said in a statement. “As long as it is allowed to continue, offshore drilling and the pollution it causes will continue to present a threat to coastal communities.”
Haaland’s statement noted that the first Trump administration tried to issue drilling leases in each of the areas that Biden is making off limits, which “garnered significant bipartisan opposition from coast to coast.”
The administration emphasized the limited prospects for oil and gas production in those areas, explaining that there is no active drilling along the Atlantic coast and the Bering Sea areas covered by the order. Offshore California has about 30 decades-old existing leases, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico has about a dozen leases.
Biden’s move will not prevent existing operations from continuing to produce oil and gas and won’t affect rights under existing leases.
Biden plans to use the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw the 625 million acres of federal waters from future oil and gas leasing. Environmentalists emphasized that Trump used the same legal authority in 2020 — during his unsuccessful re-election campaign — to block drilling off Florida in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
Trump has since gone back to pro-drilling rhetoric, promising to increase drilling for fossil fuels on “Day 1.” Biden’s decision could hinder those plans when it comes to offshore production.
OCSLA authorizes presidents to set expiration dates for withdrawing waters from drilling, or to make the decision permanent. And, according to the Congressional Research Service, the law is unclear on whether presidents can reverse withdrawals ordered by their predecessors.
That means that overturning Biden’s order would likely require an act of Congress. And that could get tricky with Republicans’ thin majorities in both the House and the Senate.
“He can do this and pretty much take this acreage out of the picture permanently, from my understanding,” said Ed Hirs, an energy fellow with the University of Houston. “Congress could take an action to get rid of this, but it would take an act of Congress.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), incoming chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told The Washington Post that Congress could seek to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse Biden’s decision. The CRA allows Congress to rescind executive branch action within 60 legislative days of its enactment with a simple majority vote.
Trump and congressional Republicans are usually supportive of the priorities of the oil and gas industry. But some Republicans in Florida and other Atlantic states do not want drilling off their coasts, fearing it could damage the tourism industry.
That could complicate an effort to undo Biden’s drilling ban, as Republicans can’t lose more than a few votes to pass a measure.
This story also appears in Climatewire.
