Biden may block some offshore oil and gas leasing

The outgoing Biden administration is poised to block future oil and gas leasing in some U.S. waters, aiming to box in president-elect Donald Trump and setting the scene for a new round of dueling executive orders from the White House.

Preparations are underway for President Biden to close off leasing on parts of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, Bloomberg reported Jan. 2. Environmental groups would like to put more seafloor off-limits, as former president Barack Obama did with some Alaska and Atlantic waters in the closing months of his administration.

 Acting under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a president can withdraw areas from consideration for leasing. The Obama decision was sustained in federal court in 2019, despite a challenge from the Trump administration then.

 For his part, Trump himself  retreated in 2018 from plans to lease in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the face of political opposition in Florida. In late 2020 Trump extended a 2012 ban on drilling in Southeast offshore areas for political reasons as he ran for re-election during the last mohths of his first term. The move extended the ban to June 2032

Despite his previous rhetoric promising to maximize oil production, Trump blocked BOEM from offering new energy leases in the Southeast Atlantic federal waters as he sought votes from South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coastal districts, 

 Aimed at Lowcountry coastal communities and tourism interests worried about future oil drilling, Trump’s directive also alarmed the oil and gas industry, who had felt confident about their prospects under his aggressive energy policies – and even the offshore wind power industry, that hoped for future development off the Carolinas.