The President Joe Biden There is a broad movement underway to ban all future oil and natural gas drilling on America’s East and West coasts, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have long known: that drilling off these coasts can cause irreversible damage to the places we love and is not necessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risk.” “, Biden said in a statement announcing the decision.
President Joe Biden speaks about the death of former US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter, who has died at the age of 100, at the Company House Hotel in Christiansted, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, on December 29, 2024.
Ken Cedeno/Reuters
According to the White House fact sheet, this move blocks drilling on more than 625 million acres of US oceans.
The filing adds that Biden took these actions “pursuant to Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act” and that his actions “have no expiration date, and prohibit all future oil and natural gas leasing” in the designated areas.
“We don’t have to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coasts resilient and the food they produce safe, and keeping energy prices low. These are false choices,” Biden added.
Gas flares on DCOR LLC’s Edith offshore oil and gas platform May 18, 2010 in the Beta field off the coast of Long Beach, California, USA. Senators from California, Oregon and Washington last week introduced legislation to ban offshore oil drilling off the West Coast amid heightened concerns about the spill from the expanding BP Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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The page says that after this sweeping move, “Biden will save more land and water than any other US president in history.”
The action comes as President-elect Trump repeatedly made a “drill, baby, drill” pledge on the campaign trail, vowing to unlock America’s drilling capabilities to lower energy costs for Americans.
