President-elect Donald Trump’s team has slammed President Joe Biden for issuing a last-minute executive order to ban drilling for oil on more than 625 million acres of offshore and coastal regions.
Biden has been threatening to make this move for some time, but waited until the 11th hour as part of an effort to hinder the incoming Trump administration’s plans to expand drilling and lower energy costs for Americans.
If Joe Biden's oil drilling ban is about saving the Earth, why did he wait four years?
I joined @DanaPerino on @FoxNews to discuss how Biden's latest lame duck action is politics at its worst. pic.twitter.com/MP97ns8SjY
— Daniel Turner (@DanielTurnerPTF) January 6, 2025
The outgoing president, whose term ends in less than two weeks, “claims authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing,” according to Breitbart News.Top of Form
Biden’s executive order will “withdraw from disposition by oil or natural gas leasing for a time period without specific expiration” in these areas: The “North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida Planning Areas of the Outer Continental Shelf,” along with the “Outer Continental Shelf designated by section 104(a) of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006,” and the “areas designated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as the Washington/Oregon, Northern California, Central California, and Southern California Planning Areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Biden has issued a statement about the outrageous decision, where he claimed that making America energy independent is not as important as supposedly protecting the land.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” the statement read.
“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” Biden argued.
Meanwhile, Trump and his team are expressing outrage over the last-minute decision.
In a statement, incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Biden’s actions “disgraceful.”
“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,” she wrote.
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. https://t.co/NvWx7oA2vU
— Karoline Leavitt (@karolineleavitt) January 6, 2025
Trump has already stated during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would reverse Biden’s decision “on day one,” adding: “I can change it immediately.”
“I will unban it immediately,” Trump said in response to rumors of Biden’s decision. “I have the right to unban it.”
Trump went on to state that the United States has “oil and gas at a level that nobody else has and we’re gonna take advantage of it.”
“We can’t let that happen to our country,” he said in reference to Biden’s ban, adding that oil and gas are “really our greatest economic asset.”
When Trump was in office during his first term, the average price of gas was $2.477 per gallon, while Biden’s presidency saw an average price per gallon of gas at $3.446, almost a dollar higher, according to US Energy Information Administration data.
