Biden wants to ban new oil drilling in large parts of the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific waters, Reuters’ Bloomberg News reports
(Reuters) – President Joe Biden will ban the development of new offshore oil and gas deposits on 625 million acres (250 million hectares) of U.S. coastal territory, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
The ban, to be announced Monday, bars the sale of drilling rights in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the report said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Biden leaves open the possibility for new oil and leasing in the central and western areas of the Gulf of Mexico, which account for about 14% of the nation’s production of these fuels, the report said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside of business hours.
The ban would cement Biden’s legacy on addressing climate change and his goal of decarbonizing the U.S. economy by 2050.
The New York Times (NYSE:) reported that a section of the law on which Biden’s decision is based, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, gives a president broad latitude to ban drilling and contains no language allowing President-elect Donald Trump or would allow other future presidents to revoke the ban.
Biden, Trump and Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama all used the law to ban the sale of offshore drilling rights in some coastal areas.
Trump tried in 2017 to reverse the Arctic and Atlantic withdrawals that Obama 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 previous bans.
