President Joe Biden is moving to ban new offshore drilling for oil and gas along most of the U.S. coast in a mad dash effort to halt any possible efforts by Trump's incoming administration to increase offshore drilling.
The action aims to protect coastal communities, businesses and more.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” President Biden said in a statement announcing the executive action.
Industry experts weighed in on the impact the action will have.
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“This will definitely limit the opportunity for exploration because that’s exactly what this ban does and this is based on this 1953 law called the Outer Continental Shelves Act and what the act says is that it allows the president to protect offshore land under the sea against exploration of oil and gas for protection of the environment,” University of Southern California Professor Shon Hiatt Ph.D. said.
The short-term and long-term impacts of the move will remain to be seen on the price of oil and gas.
“I don’t think it’s going to have that big of an impact on the oil and gas prices in the near term, but it could in the future depending on how technologies develop, affect the ability of the United States or these companies of the United States to explore for oil and gas,” Prof. Hiatt said.
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The announcement received a positive reaction from environmental groups.
“We’re so excited. It’s an epic ocean victory,” Climate & Energy Campaign Director of Oceana, Joseph Gordon said.
“We hope that the millions that live near the coast like in San Diego or visit there and depend on tourism and the businesses or just hope someday to go to one of those vast places that were protected today can take comfort knowing that there will never be offshore drilling in those areas. There will never be an oil spill like Deepwater Horizon,” he added.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the action on Monday.
“We thank the Biden-Harris administration for taking this bold action that will pay dividends for generations to come,” Gov. Newsom said.
President Obama used the act to protect 119 million acres of land in 2016.
During President-elect Trump’s first term, he signed an executive order to overturn President Obama’s actions to use the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect 119 million acres of land but the decision was struck down in the courts.
