By Alex Hendricksen
Recently, President Joe Biden passed an executive action that will permanently ban new offshore drilling across more than 625 acres of U.S. oceans. This action will ban all oil and gas companies from leasing water for drilling along the Gulf of Mexico, the East and West Coasts, and Alaska’s Bering Sea.
Trump quickly clapped back, saying that he’ll “unban it immediately.” He may try, but the way that the law is written makes it difficult to do so. Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which is a seventy-year-old law that lets the president limit future drilling in federal waters. Both Trump and Biden have used this law to their respective advantages, whether it was environmentally damaging or politically contentious.
Trump tested the validity of this law in his first presidency when he attempted to use an executive order to reverse Barack Obama’s action. Even with his executive order, Trump was unable to revoke the action. A simple take away from that is that it would take Congress to undo Biden’s latest actions regarding the withdrawal from federal waters. Republicans would have to get Congress to pass a law that would repossess the withdrawn water.
With nearly 40% of Americans living near the coast, it is imperative that they stay clean, healthy, and not at risk of an oil spill. The construction of more offshore drill sites could have preposterously negative consequences and may not be dissimilar to the Deepwater Horizon spill that hit Louisiana’s coast almost fifteen years ago. Biden stated in his announcement that it is a “solemn reminder of the costs and risks of offshore drilling to the health and resilience of our coasts and fisheries.”
Though the United States could theoretically have cheaper gasoline with more offshore drilling, we are unlikely to see a significant change in gas prices. Additionally, we have to remember there are more than 400 municipalities and over 2,300 elected local, tribal, state, and federal officials across the bodies of water that have formally opposed the expansion of offshore drilling in these areas in view of its extremely high environmental and economic threats. This remains increasingly interesting, as this is supported by many Conservatives and Democrats alike. “Americans have been calling for these protections for decades,” Oceana Campaign Director Joseph Gordon said in a statement. Oceana cited a survey the group released last year showing that 64 percent of Americans support protecting coastal waters from offshore drilling.
It is also important to keep in mind the amount of fish that we may be giving up if this law gets revoked. Millions of fishermen would potentially lose their livelihood, and we would no longer receive fresh fish and crustaceans. The United States could also take a sizable hit to tourism with the beaches and waters being one of our greatest assets.
The offshore drilling ban was just a part of a larger effort by the Biden-Harris administration to limit federal lands on and offshore. Biden finalized major loans for EV batteries, which was an ambitious step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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