Biden administration closes 625 million acres of US ocean to offshore drilling

US President Joe Biden issued an order to restrict oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of US coastal waters Jan. 6 as "drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation's energy needs."

Citing the authority of Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Biden issued two presidential memoranda to protect all waters off the east and west coasts of the US, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, from all future oil and gas leasing. The directive is designed to be permanent and has no expiration date.

"We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low," Biden said in the statement.

"Those are false choices. Protecting America's coasts and ocean is the right thing to do, and will help communities and the economy to flourish for generations to come."

A spokesperson for President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20, decried the move.

"This is 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," spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill."

The only major legal challenge to presidential authority under the OCS Lands Act came in 2019 after the first Trump administration issued an executive order designed to overturn the withdrawal of Alaskan offshore drilling areas during the administration of former president Barack Obama.

That challenge failed in the District Court for the District of Alaska, which concluded that the OCS Lands Act permits a president only to withdraw lands from disposition but does not allow a president to revoke prior withdrawals.

Reversing Biden's withdrawals would require congressional legislation -- which in 2025 could include a reinstatement of the restricted acreage in the incoming Republican majority's planned reconciliation bills, ClearView Partners wrote in a note to clients Jan. 6.

"Whether lawmakers pursue one reconciliation bill or two, they are likely to be looking for 'pay-fors' to offset some portion of multiple trillions of dollars of spending for the individual tax provisions of the (2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) alone," ClearView wrote. "In that context, reconciliation could offer a 53-vote pathway to reinstating acreage otherwise unavailable for leasing because it has been permanently withdrawn."

There are no current leases on any of the waters Biden moved to restrict. Development of the eastern Gulf Coast has been met with significant resistance from Florida lawmakers of both parties. In 2020, as president, Trump issued a memorandum under the same OCS Lands Act authority to prohibit energy development in those waters until 2032.

Industry critical

Oil and gas industry trade groups criticized the latest move.

"President Biden's decision to ban new offshore oil and natural gas development across approximately 625 million acres of US coastal and offshore waters is significant and catastrophic," Ron Neal, chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America's Offshore Committee, said in a statement.

"While it may not directly affect the currently active protraction areas in the Outer Continental Shelf and adjoining coastal areas, it represents a major attack on the oil and natural gas industry."

The American Petroleum Institute's president Mike Sommers said: "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."

Meanwhile, Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat-California and the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the move "cements President Biden's historic climate legacy."

"Importantly, today's action is Trump-proof; the courts have already defended the 12(a) authority against previous attacks," Huffman said in a statement. "We know the President-elect will do everything in his power to enact his 'drill baby drill' agenda, but fortunately for us all, handing our oceans over to Big Oil billionaires will be off the table."