[ad_1]
President Joe Biden is planning to prohibit future offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the nation’s coastline, setting up a potential roadblock for Republicans’ plans to expand production in federal waters.
Biden is set to announce on Monday that he will withdraw 625 million acres of coastline from future oil and gas drilling. That would encompass all of the Atlantic Coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific coast from Washington to California and parts of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea, according to a person briefed on the matter but who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The move tees up a fight over offshore energy as President-elect Donald Trump plans to turbocharge domestic oil and gas production as part of his pledge to cut U.S. energy costs in half in the first 18 months of his presidency.
Biden’s prohibitions on leasing will rely on powers under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which withstood its only major legal challenge when a federal court in 2019 denied the Trump administration’s attempt to unwind an Obama administration withdrawal of areas for offshore oil and gas drilling near Alaska. That ruling will complicate Trump’s ability to rescind the upcoming action, leaving it to Congress to overturn.
The White House and the Interior Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Although most of the areas covered under the presidential memorandums have drawn little interest from the oil and gas industry, the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico is believed to hold large untapped reservoirs of oil. Opening that area to exploration has long drawn opposition from Florida officials from both parties — as well as Trump, who prohibited leasing there through 2032 under his own 2020 memorandum.
Republicans are huddling to write broad spending legislation expected to include requirements that the Interior Department speed the pace of oil and gas lease sales — including in the Gulf of Mexico, which is responsible for 14 percent of U.S. oil output. They aim to move those measures using budget reconciliation, which allows the bill to pass with a simple majority in both chambers, avoiding the need to attract Democratic votes.
But some experts anticipate Florida Republicans will seek to exploit their party’s thin majority to strengthen the prohibition on leasing in the eastern Gulf of Mexico — potentially delivering a parting victory for Biden and his environmental legacy.
“These are areas where drilling is not popular, and these people want to see their coastal economies protected, their wildlife protected,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, director of public lands at left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress. “I would find it quite unlikely that Republicans could come in and decide to open up all of these places where there hasn’t been drilling in the past for new drilling and new lease sales without having some serious pushback.”
Trump’s first term move to prevent leasing off the Florida coast and along South Carolina and Georgia acknowledged the opposition in those states. But energy industry executives said Trump’s actions were more targeted, while Biden’s step would be permanent. They noted oil and gas demand is rising globally, and said blocking development in the U.S. merely shifts production to geopolitical rivals and nations with fewer environmental safeguards.
“Voters made their views clear about the importance of American energy yet the Biden administration’s misguided approach continues to undermine our nation’s energy advantage,” Dustin Meyer, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement.
Republicans expect to call for new oil and gas lease sales to help pay for its budget reconciliation package, which aims to extend expiring tax cuts and expand immigration enforcement efforts, said a Republican congressional aide familiar with negotiations who was granted anonymity to speak about fluid discussions. But those lease sales are likely to focus on areas where drilling faces little opposition rather than places like the Atlantic Coast, the aide said.
Florida Republicans’ opposition to opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico divided the House Republican caucus last Congress when it tried to pass its signature energy legislation, H.R. 1 (118). Florida members demanded protections against drilling to back expanded lease sales elsewhere in the Gulf, said a former Republican aide who was granted anonymity to shed light on internal debates.
“The eastern Gulf was a real challenge during H.R. 1, and with a smaller majority they’re going to need everything they can in order to get members to the table,” the aide said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another push from Floridians to address this issue in reconciliation.”
Environmental advocates are counting on Florida and other coastal Republicans to buck their party if the caucus tries to hold mandatory lease sales and reverse Biden’s actions. But it does not preclude Republicans from pushing more lease sales in areas Biden’s order does not touch where drilling is already taking place, such as the central and western Gulf of Mexico.
“Although there will certainly be an effort and there will be expansion of drilling likely under their leadership, they also didn’t drill in a lot of these areas,” Joseph Gordon, climate and energy campaign director with Oceana, said of past Republican congresses and Trump. “President Trump withdrew a vast area of the Southeast from drilling. So we’re hopeful that there still will be the opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to protect our coast.”
Greenlighting more lease sales through legislation would follow a recent trend. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed by the same budget reconciliation process in 2022, required the Biden administration to hold regular lease sales in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, although Republicans have accused Biden of slow-walking the process to ready those lease sales.
The oil and gas industry is likely to challenge a total ban in the Atlantic and Pacific in the courts even if they have no immediate interest in drilling there — if only to keep that option available, said an energy industry lobbyist. But the nation’s most lucrative plays are in the Gulf of Mexico, with some producers eyeing western slices of the eastern Gulf of Mexico where they could still tap existing infrastructure from the central Gulf.
“The Floridians will wave their arms and be all melodramatic, but it’s whatever Trump wants,” the energy industry source said.
[ad_2]
Source link