Bloomberg and the New York Times report that in the next few days President Joe Biden will ban all new offshore oil and gas development, including 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory. Alaska has more Outer Continental Shelf area than the rest of the nation and territories combined.
It would be another of the 11th hour moves by the anti-Alaska president and radical Democrats.
Congressman Nick Begich III immediately responded. On X, he wrote:
“Joe Biden is a son of a bitch. Hundreds of thousands of Alaskans rely on natural gas from the Cook Inlet to heat and electrify their homes, churches, schools, and workplaces. Actions like this should serve as a permanent reminder that the Democrat machine is more than happy to sacrifice us all in the name of their sanctimonious, socialist-driven, climate science™ religion.”
The Biden move against U.S. energy security is reportedly coming on Monday, and would ban the federal leasing of any new drilling rights in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the easter Gulf of Mexico. Biden will justify his actions due to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows a president to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing.
Although the Act does not include language allowing any future presidents to reverse the ban, President Donald Trump may do so and then fight it in court.
President Barack Obama banned offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic Ocean. During his presidency, Trump tried to revoke the ban, but Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in 2019 ruled that Obama’s ban could not be unwound without Congress passing an act allowing it. In other words, the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act allows land to be locked up by a president, and future presidents have no power to unlock it.
