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.
I am reminded of Obama banning coal plants from dumping their waste in rivers, 2 weeks before the end of his term, which was immediately reversed by Trump.
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.
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.
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.
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
Biden did finally gets us to start transitioning to EVs after so many delays
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.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Exactly what Biden is thinking too. He presided over record oil extraction during his term.
Average national cost of gasoline per gallon in the US (monthly average) first went over $3 nearly two decades ago. Today it’s $3.07. The July 2006 average of $3.025/gallon would have the purchasing power of around $4.75 in today’s dollars. What are people really thinking they should be paying for gasoline in a world that needs to be moving AWAY from using fossil fuels?
Seriously, we’d see a move away from massive SUVs in a heartbeat if Americans had to pay what we do in the UK for petrol. It’s over twice as much here.
For some reason they think it’s a right to take 3 tons of their own personal metal on a two hour round trip every day.
The problem with those numbers is that gas is a totally inelastic demand for anyone who can’t afford an EV. Actual wages haven’t gone up 60% in 2 decades, so paying 4.75 today would hit a lot harder than paying $3 in 2006.
I can’t disagree with your first sentence. However.
Actual wages haven’t gone up 60% in 2 decades, so paying 4.75 today would hit a lot harder than paying $3 in 2006.
Yes, but by that logic, actual fuel cost has gone down. I was 3 dollars then and it’s 3 dollars now. But now wages in pure dollar amounts are much higher.
60% seems close enough between, say, 2006 and 2022
But again, that’s wages in raw dollar amounts. Adjusted for inflation, people don’t make more, but then adjusted for inflation, gas is literally cheaper than it used to be. You have to either adjust for inflation for everything, or nothing.
Inb4 a random red state sues for loss of profits and 5th circuit blocks the motion.
My money is on Texas this time.
What can be done by presidential mandate can be undone by presidential mandate. If the Democrats weren’t buffoons they might try doing the mandating at the beginning of their term, when it can be in place for 4-8 years, instead of at the end of it when it will be in place for a month at best.
but doing it at the beginning of his term would require him to actually be pushing hard for this.
He doesn’t want it to ever actually take place, just like Obama and Net Neutrality
It will likely take longer to get this implemented than it will for Trump to rescind it.He put his energy into green energy that was in the IRA.
If he had pushed this earlier and then the green energy stuff now, you’d say “why didn’t he do the green energy at the start of his term?” There no winning when that’s all you say.
This is a presidential order, IRA was an act of congress. This drilling ban could have been done immediately, and either way, IRA would have taken years to get through congress
And we’re back to “why didn’t they do everything, everywhere, all at once?”
It’s as though you didn’t read my comment at all. I said the presidential order could have been done right away, and IRA would take awhile regardless given there were more steps involved (an act of congress)
Why couldn’t he do both at the start of the term?
Ah the classic “why didn’t they do everything, everywhere, all at once?!”
True, he was too busy approving a record number of fracking permits. We can’t expect him to do everything!
You need to solve the demand problem.
A lot fewer people would be demanding oil if they could get a cheap EV, but Biden slapped 100% tariffs on those.
This isn’t one and done, nor is it a small item. You reallllly want to build up your own industry. Then see if you can dominate the world in one way or another.
So he’s too incompetent to have done both? Why did we tolerate him running for re-election?
Should last what two weeks?
Yeah if he did this 3-4 years ago, it would have made a dent, now it’s nothing but virtue signaling.
It’s complete virtue signaling. The amount of oil extracted from federal land has never been higher than in the past four years.
If only he had done this and prosecute Trump 3 goddamn years ago, maybe he wouldn’t have lost!
… or you know, spend the last 3 years setting up a proper democrat candidate instead of getting in the way till the last minute.
Global warming averted forever!
Why are we linking to a Republican rag to report on Democratic “policy”?
Because this is the sort of meaningless feel-good story that Bezos thinks his readers want as he turns The Washington Post into The New York Post.
Is it anything more than symbolic at this point considering Trump will be in office in 15 days?
Because he’s going to immediately reverse it.Excellent. Let’s move on from oil.
These memorandums, how legally robust are they? Will Trump just be able to turn them over?
Apparently no https://youtu.be/SGwc5jWnhM8
if I do something good on my way out maybe history won’t remember me for enabling the genocide of Palestine.
instead of prohibiting leasing, which will be immediately overturned, he should lease them to a conservation trust for 99 years. you know … if he was serious.
Ok do genocide next
In my opinion we’re doing more than enough genocide already, don’t you think?
Nelson: Ha-ha
