President Joe Biden will move Monday to block all future oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters — equivalent to nearly a quarter of the total land area of the United States, according to two people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.
The action underscores how Biden is racing to cement his legacy on climate change and conservation in his last weeks in office. President-elect Donald Trump, who has described his energy policy as “drill, baby, drill,” is likely to work with congressional Republicans to challenge the decision.
Biden will issue two memorandums that prohibit future federal oil and gas leasing across large swaths of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the two people said. The oil and gas industry has long prized the eastern Gulf of Mexico in particular, viewing the area as a key part of its offshore production plans.
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Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said in an email: “This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”
The move could have the biggest impact in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for about 14 percent of the country’s crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Industry operations there focus on a small sliver of federal waters off Louisiana’s coast.
That’s what it says in the summary.
Thing is, it’s not a complete waste of time even if it has no practical impact on oil production. It means that Trump has to make a clear unambiguous statement in support of drilling. In the same way history has recorded the coal / river thing, so it will be for oil.
When you do something for 4 years, and then stop at the last minute so you cynically can point out your opposition doing the same thing, it just shows that you don’t actually want what your voters want, but are too chickenshit to just endorse the republican position that you implemented for 3 years and 11 months.
That’s… disingenuous I think.
Biden has a lot to answer for, but this is just hyperbole.
Ideals are worthless if you can’t get elected. Like fracking might be objectively bad, but if banning fracking will block you from getting elected then it’s not a good policy.
Sure, a lot of people don’t want more drilling, but apparently more voters do want more drilling.
Except this very same excuse could be made by Trump. Which would still make this just disingenuous political trickery rather than any genuine effort to help.
It’s the Hunter Biden pardon all over again. So you pardoned your son, big deal. Would be more concerning if a father did not help his son. But don’t go around for a year beforehand pretending to be holier than thou, spouting bullshit about believing in justice and not giving him a pardon.
You can bet that if Harris has won, Biden wouldn’t had do this.
And actually banning fracking, cold turkey, would be a huge shock to the economy. Biden did finally gets us to start transitioning to EVs after so many delays and he did take record amounts of land off the table for drilling. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt that he would have taken care of this second term, as EVs started to dominate the new car market
Biden was the only major candidate where you could say this with a straight face
Or the more Machiavellian answer is maybe this is part of the Ukraine war…… anything to help wean countries off Russian oil
Delays he caused by putting tariffs on the competition so the big 3 can continue to force anyone who wants a half-decent EV to pay 60K+.
If we had chinese EVs for 20-30K, 4/5 cars bought in the last 4 years would be EVs and trying to ban the only car most people can afford would be political suicide, and the big 3 would be forced to compete.
Instead Biden continued to escalate Trump’s trade war with China and EVs are still 10K more expensive than ICE cars, which are massively overpriced due to the captive market.
I… Dude are you fucking kidding? “Trump has to make a clear unambiguous statement in support of drilling” Has he not already done that countless times? Proudly in fact?
This action is meaningless, don’t try to sugar coat it with the usual “well at least we’ll have a record”. We already HAVE a record, FFS! Even if we didn’t, it doesn’t matter, no one keeps track of voting records anymore! Thinking this matters is like thinking someone leaking nudes of a pornstar matters. The pornstar won’t care, those who see it won’t be shocked, and the entire process only serves as masterbation material for idiots.