'Epic ocean victory': Biden permanently bans offshore drilling across 625 million acres

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—is 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 Post observed, "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."