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offshore drilling
'Epic Ocean Victory': Biden Permanently Bans Offshore Drilling Across 625 Million Acres
The authority President Joe Biden used could make it difficult for the incoming Trump administration to reverse the sweeping drilling ban.
Jan 06, 2025
Outgoing President Joe Biden on Monday moved to permanently ban offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, protecting swaths of the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and Alaska's Northern Bering Sea from fossil fuel exploitation just before President-elect Donald Trump is set to retake power.
Biden said in a statement that his 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."
Invoking the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill—the largest in U.S. history—Biden said future drilling off the coasts he's seeking to protect "is not worth the risks." Recent polling indicates that a majority of the American public agrees: 64% support action to shield U.S. coastlines from new offshore drilling, according to a 2024 survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the advocacy group Oceana.
"As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy," the president said Monday, "now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren."
Biden's move comes just two weeks before Trump, a fervent champion of fossil fuel drilling, is set to be sworn in as the nation's 47th president. During his first term in office, Trump moved to expand offshore drilling to nearly all U.S. coastal waters before temporarily banning drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina in 2020.
The far-right Project 2025 agenda crafted by members of Trump's first administration calls for a major increase in offshore fossil fuel drilling.
"Our treasured coastal communities are now safeguarded for future generations."
While Trump and his proposed Cabinet—which is stacked with allies of the oil and gas industry—are expected to aggressively roll back climate protections put in place by the Biden administration, the outgoing president's new executive action could have staying power.
In a fact sheet, the White House said Biden is using his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to "protect all U.S. Outer Continental Shelf areas off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska from future oil and natural gas leasing." The withdrawals, according to the White House, "have no expiration date, and prohibit all future oil and natural gas leasing in the areas withdrawn."
As The Washington Postobserved, "A federal judge ruled in 2019 that such withdrawals cannot be undone without an act of Congress."
"Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested that he would seek to overturn the decision using the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to nullify an executive action within 60 days of enactment with a simple majority vote," the Post added.
A spokesperson for Trump's transition team called Biden's action "disgraceful," adding, "Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill."
Predictably, the fossil fuel lobby also denounced Biden's executive action and implored lawmakers to "use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision."
While Biden has faced criticism from environmentalists throughout his four-year term for approving drilling permits in the face of intensifying climate chaos in the U.S. and around the world, advocates celebrated the president's latest executive action as a critical win.
"This is an epic ocean victory!" said Joseph Gordon, campaign director at Oceana. "Thank you, President Biden, for listening to the voices from coastal communities and contributing to the bipartisan tradition of protecting our coasts."
"Our coastlines are home to millions of Americans and support billions of dollars of economic activity that depend on a clean coast, abundant wildlife, and thriving fisheries," Gordon added. "Our treasured coastal communities are now safeguarded for future generations."
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Sunday Was Earth's Hottest Day on Record
"We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years," one expert said.
Jul 23, 2024
July 21 was Earth's hottest day on record, overtaking the record set last July during the
hottest year in millennia.
The European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found that Sunday's average air surface temperature soared to 17.09°C , or 62.76°F, according to preliminary data. While that is only 0.1°C warmer than the previous record—set on July 6, 2023—it was nearly 0.3°C higher than the pre-2023 record, set at 16.8°C on August 13, 2016.
"What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records," C3S Director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. "We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years."
The news follows a year of shattered temperature records as El Niño combined with the climate emergency to heat air and ocean to levels well above average. While El Niño conditions ended in April, scientists still predict that 2024 could overtake 2023 as the hottest year on record.
As of June 2024, the past 13 months have all been the hottest of their kind on record. June 2024 was also the 12th month in a row to see its average temperature meet or surpass 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—the most ambitious temperature goal enshrined in the Paris agreement.
Scientists have warned that the only way to keep global temperatures from rising further is to rapidly phase out the use of oil, gas, and coal and transition to renewable energy.
"These recurring record-breaking temperatures are a scorching red flag, but it's not too late to reverse course."
Before Sunday, the last hottest day on record was July 6, 2023, which was also the fourth consecutive day to break that record. The previous record was set at 17.08°C, or 62.74°F, according to Copernicus. However, since the 2016 temperature record was first broken on July 3, 2023, 57 days in the past year have also surpassed it.
What's more, C3S found that the last 10 years have been the 10 years on record with the highest average daily temperatures.
"The difference in the highest daily average temperature between the lowest ranked of those 10 years (2015) and the previous record before 2023 (13 August 2016) was 0.2°C. The jump from the 2016 record to 2023/2024 is about 0.3°C, highlighting how substantial the warmth of 2023 and 2024," C3S said.
Record-breaking temperatures have also brought extreme weather.
On Sunday, Florida meteorologist Jeff Berardelli wrote on social media that "the most anomalously warm places were Antarctica and Western Canada where several hundred wildfires blaze, many out of control."
C3S also said that Sunday's record was in part driven by "much-above-average temperatures over large parts of Antarctica."
The warmest day on record also coincided with heatwaves in Russia, Europe, and the U.S., Reutersreported.
C3S predicted that temperatures would continue to rise in the short term.
"In the coming days, we are expecting the daily global average temperature to further increase and peak around 22 or 23 July 2024 and then go down, but with possible further fluctuations in the coming weeks," the agency said.
In the longer term, temperature trends will depend on whether policymakers can take ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the destruction of natural carbon sinks.
"These recurring record-breaking temperatures are a scorching red flag, but it's not too late to reverse course," Oceana Campaign director Joseph Gordon said in a statement. "When you're on the path to destruction, the best thing you can do is turn around."
Gordon recommended one thing U.S. President Joe Biden in particular could do to stop runaway climate change.
"One of the most immediate and impactful ways to address greenhouse gas emissions is to prevent new offshore drilling in the United States," Gordon said. "Offshore drilling drives climate change throughout its entire process. President Biden must permanently protect our coasts from offshore drilling and move us toward a clean energy future."
An earlier version of this article misstated the difference between the new temperature record and the pre-2023 record.
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Trump Would Sell Anything for Personal Gain—Even Planet Earth
Trump told oil and gas executives to raise $1 billion to return him to the White House and he’d reverse dozens of Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.
May 10, 2024
Trump is selling everything to raise money for himself and his campaign.
The Trump Bible (which also includes a copy of the U.S. Constitution, Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights).
Trump shoes (ranging from the nearly all-gold “Never Surrender” high tops priced at $399 to the lower-cut “Red Wave” and “POTUS 45”).
Shares in Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform.
You might think that the world can’t be bought and sold, but apparently there are no bounds to the promises Trump will make to get back into the White House.
Digital trading cards (of which the most recent set, “The Mugshot edition,” offers collectors a chance to own a swatch of the suit the former president wore for his Fulton County, Georgia, mugshot, priced at $99 a piece or $4,653 for the full set, which includes an invitation to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago).
Trump cologne and perfume stamped with the former president’s name (the “Victory47” bottles are each listed for $99 respectively. The cologne bottle’s image, subject to change, has a Trump head topper).
But now, Trump is selling something far, far bigger. In fact, you can’t get any bigger.
He’s selling the entire world.
You might think that the world can’t be bought and sold, but apparently there are no bounds to the promises Trump will make to get back into the White House.
Everything’s for sale.
When Trump sat down with some of America’s top oil executives last month at Mar-a-Lago, according to the The Washington Post, they complained of burdensome environmental regulations, despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.
Trump’s response? He would offer them a better deal.
He told them to raise $1 billion to return him to the White House and he’d reverse dozens of Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted (according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation).
The $1 billion “deal” would more than pay for itself, Trump told the oil executives, because of the taxes and regulations they would avoid thanks to him.
Biden has called global warming an “existential threat,” and over the last three years, his administration has finalized 100 new environmental regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restricting toxic chemicals, and conserving public lands and waters.
Trump has called climate change a “hoax.” His administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules over four years.
Now, he’s making an even bigger offer. At that Mar-a-Lago dinner, the former president told Big Oil executives that they’ll have an even greater windfall in a second Trump administration — including new offshore drilling, speedier permits, and other relaxed regulations — if they sink a billion into his campaign.
Trump promised to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports — a top priority for the executives. “You’ll get it on the first day,” Trump said.
Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, another priority for several of the executives. He railed against wind power. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
Trump also promised that he would scrap Biden’s rules for electric vehicles. The rules require automakers to reduce emissions from car tailpipes butdon’t mandate a particular technology such as EVs. Trump called the rules “ridiculous” in the meeting with donors.
Will Big Oil put up $1 billion for all of this? Maybe.
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