President Biden Permanently Protects Vulnerable Areas of the Ocean from Oil and Gas Drilling

In his final weeks in office, President Biden protected 625 million acres of vulnerable areas of the ocean from oil and gas drilling — in a way that incoming president-elect Donald Trump can’t easily undo.

Here’s what to know:

The protected areas include a range where the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred in 2010 — the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

• The area comprises over 8 million acres of ultra-deepwater in the Central and Eastern Gulf of Mexico — areas that were affected by the BP oil spill, which killed thousands of marine wildlife. The spill cost $17.2 billion in damage and 25,000 jobs.
• The order also protects 334 million acres in the Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Florida down to the Eastern Gulf, which host a diverse array of wildlife and sensitive habitats.
• In the Pacific Ocean, the ban withdraws 250 million acres off the West Coast that are prime habitat for seals, whales, seabirds, and other marine life, and 44 million acres of water on Alaska’s western coast.

There are strong legal grounds for Biden to withdraw offshore areas from oil and gas drilling.

• Biden invoked his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which allows presidents to ban oil and gas development in certain federal waters.
• Eight U.S. presidents have used the Act to protect federal waters since 1973, including presidents Trump, Obama, and George W. Bush.
• The newly protected areas are undeveloped and withdrawing them will not affect the nation’s energy supply: Fossil fuel companies currently possess 12 million acres of offshore waters in the Gulf, with only 20% of those currently producing oil and gas. Additionally, the U.S. is currently producing more oil than any nation at any time in history.

President-elect Donald Trump can’t easily undo these protections.

• Future presidents cannot revoke bans on offshore oil drilling under OCSLA.
• Despite this, Trump tried during his first term to undo Obama-era bans on offshore oil drilling in almost all of the Arctic Ocean and parts of the Atlantic.
• We challenged the move in court, arguing that the president had exceeded his executive authority. We won, and in 2019 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that these areas of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans are completely off-limits for oil and gas leasing.
• If Trump tries to undo the new offshore drilling ban, he will face an uphill battle.