President-elect Donald Trump has already pledged to reverse President Joe Biden’s move to withdraw more than 600 million acres of offshore waters from fossil fuel development.
If Trump follows through with his promise, history shows that he may not have such an easy time defending his actions in court.
“It would be very much an uphill battle to ask a court to invalidate Biden’s order,” said Keith Hall, director of the Mineral Law Institute at Louisiana State University, in an email.
“If Biden had tried to withdraw all unleased acreage in all federal waters, or to do something close to that, thereby preventing all future leasing, supporters of offshore leasing would have a good argument that such an order would be an abuse of discretion and invalid,” Hall continued, “but of course that is not what happened.”
