Barely weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the United States 47th President, the outgoing President, Joe Biden, on Monday banned offshore drilling across an immense area of coastal water.
The ban looks like a direct policy against Trump’s pledge to massively increase fossil fuel production to cut down gas prices.
An analysis of the details of the ban shows that it encompasses the entire Atlantic coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Pacific coast off California, Oregon, and Washington, and a section of the Bering Sea off Alaska.
A White House statement on Monday said the declaration protected more than 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of coastal water.
“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,” Biden said in the statement.
“In balancing the many uses and benefits of America’s ocean, it is clear to me that the relatively minimal fossil fuel potential in the areas I am withdrawing does not justify the environmental, public health, and economic risks that would come from new leasing and drilling,” he added.
DAILY POST reports that the ban does not have an end date and could be legally – and politically — tricky for Trump to overturn upon resumption of office.
Biden drew his legal backing from the US Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, which gives the federal government authority over the exploitation of offshore resources.
Meanwhile, the law, however, does not expressly provide for presidents to unilaterally reverse a drilling ban without going through Congress.
Recall that during his campaign, Trump pledged to “unleash” domestic fossil fuel production in a bid to lower gas costs.
After US media reported late last week that Biden would issue such a ban, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming press secretary, called the move “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.”
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