President Biden announced an 11th-hour executive action on Monday that bans new drilling and further oil and natural gas development on more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal and offshore waters.
Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing. He invoked the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, meaning President-elect Trump could be limited in his ability to revoke the action. Congress might need to intervene to grant Trump authority to place federal waters back into development.
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