Biden Enacts Last-Minute Offshore Drilling Ban Across Vast Swath Of US Waters

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is banning future offshore oil and gas activity across 625 million acres of the outer continental shelf, an area larger than the amount of land included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, in its waning days.

The action will shut down future drilling along the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 250 million acres along the West Coast and 44 million acres of the Bering Sea along the Alaskan Coast. The law that President Joe Biden invoked to issue the policy does not give presidents explicit authority to revoke withdrawals approved by a former president, so the incoming Trump administration may have difficulty unwinding the ban as it pursues plans to unleash the U.S. energy sector.

“Today President Biden will take action to protect the entire U.S. East coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and natural gas leasing. In protecting more than 625 million acres of the U.S. ocean from offshore drilling, President Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential.”

The White House announcement laying out the new drilling ban suggests that Monday’s actions secure Biden’s legacy on climate and energy policy, and the administration previously moved to cut offshore oil and gas drilling by issuing the most restrictive five-year leasing schedule in modern history in 2023. The 625 million acres affected by Monday’s announcement is a larger total area of land than the 530 million acres bought in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Numerous Democrats and well-heeled environmental organizations lobbied Biden to take significant, permanent action on climate change on his way out of the presidency in advance of Monday’s announcement. Meanwhile, industry groups have slammed the ban, describing it as a politically-motivated parting shot at an industry that the Biden administration sparred with for four years.

Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for White House press secretary, also ripped the decision in a Monday morning post to X, calling it “disgraceful” and promising that the Trump administration will nevertheless work to ramp up energy production.

Notably, the Biden administration has made a major push to expand offshore wind development along America’s coastlines, even among concerns from some environmentalists and researchers that offshore wind development may be responsible for a number of whale deaths along the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared unusual mortality events in response to surging death counts of North Atlantic Right Whales, Atlantic Humpback Whales and Atlantic Minke Whales since 2017 and 2018, which the government attributes mostly to climate change and vessel strikes.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.