Biden to ban new oil drilling over vast areas of US Atlantic and Pacific waters
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is set to ban new offshore oil and gas development across 625 million acres (250 million hectares) of U.S. coastal territory, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
The ban, to be announced on Monday, rules out the sale of drilling rights in stretches of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, said the report, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Biden is leaving the possibility open for new oil and natural gas leasing in the central and western areas of the Gulf of Mexico, which account for around 14% of the nation’s production of these fuels, the report said.
The ban would solidify Biden’s legacy on addressing climate change and his goal to decarbonise the U.S. economy by 2050.
The New York Times reported that a section of the law Biden’s decision relies on, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, gives a president wide leeway to bar drilling and does not include language that would allow President-elect Donald Trump or other future presidents to revoke the ban.
Biden, Trump, and Barack Obama all used the law to ban sales of offshore drilling rights in some coastal areas.
Trump tried in 2017 to reverse Arctic and Atlantic Ocean withdrawals Obama had made at the end of his presidency, but a federal judge ruled in 2019 that the law does not give presidents the legal authority to overturn prior bans.
Under the new climate finance deal struck at COP29, rich countries, including the U.S., pledged to provide $300 billion annually to developing nations by 2035.
The deal included a broader goal of raising $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 from public and private sources, matching what economists say is needed and developing nations sought from wealthy governments.
With Donald Trump ascending to power, however, concerns have emerged that the world’s largest economy may ignore or abandon any climate finance commitments made in Baku. Besides, Trump has appointed Chris Wright, a staunch defender of fossil fuel use and climate change denier, to lead the Department of Energy in his new administration.
