Challenging the Trump Administration’s Illegal Order to Undo Ocean Protections from Offshore Drilling

Groups concerned about the threats from offshore drilling filed the first environmental legal challenge against the second Trump administration.

• One group is challenging an illegal order by President Trump to revoke former President Biden’s withdrawal of vulnerable areas of the ocean from future oil-and-gas leasing.
• Another set of groups is taking a related action asking a court to reinstate a federal court ruling that invalidated an attempt by the first Trump administration to undo Obama-era offshore protections. President Trump has attempted to open nearly the entire Arctic Ocean to drilling by reviving his first-term order.

President Biden protected areas off the Eastern Gulf, Atlantic, Pacific, and Alaska coasts by invoking his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

The law authorizes the president to withdraw offshore areas from oil and gas leasing, as eight administrations, including the first Trump administration, have routinely done.

However, the law does not authorize the president to revoke the withdrawals of prior presidents, which a federal court confirmed when Trump attempted to undo Obama-era protections for the Arctic Ocean and portions of the Atlantic oceans during his first term.

Nearly 400 municipalities and over 2,300 elected officials across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts have formally opposed the expansion of offshore drilling in these areas. Hundreds of organizations and lawmakers supported the President taking this action. Nearly every governor along the East and West coasts — Republican and Democrat alike — has expressed concerns about expanded oil and gas drilling off their coastlines.

Plaintiffs Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) are each representing themselves in this case. The plaintiffs in the related litigation to reinstate protections for the Arctic and parts of the Atlantic include League of Conservation Voters, Defenders of Wildlife, NRDC, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Greenpeace, and Alaska Wilderness League. These groups are represented by Earthjustice and NRDC.