By announcing on Monday the ban on new “offshore” drilling over a huge expanse of sea, Joe Biden is trying to get in the way of a major campaign promise from Donald Trump, namely boosting gas and oil production.
The Democratic president, who will cede power on January 20 to his Republican rival, has decided to ban any new drilling in a maritime area covering more than 2.5 million square kilometers. The ban, which has no end date, will apply along the Atlantic coast of the United States and the Pacific coast, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, in Bering Strait.
“The time has come to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” justified Joe Biden. “It is clear to me that the relatively minor fossil fuel potential of protected areas does not justify the risks to the environment, public health and the economy that new concessions and drilling would pose.”
“We do not have to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy or between preserving our oceans, our coasts and the food they produce, and keeping energy prices low. These are false alternatives,” he denounced.
The message is clearly aimed at the Republican president-elect who, during the campaign, promised to drill hard to lower the cost of gasoline, while US hydrocarbon production is already at record levels. . According to the American press, it could be difficult for the 78-year-old billionaire to reverse the decision of his Democratic predecessor.
Joe Biden is relying on a 1953 law giving authority to the federal government over the exploitation of seabed resources off the coast, the “Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act”. This text does not expressly provide for the right for the president to reverse, without going through Congress, a decision to ban new drilling.
The future spokesperson for the Trump administration, Karoline Leavitt, did not wait for the announcement to criticize, via a message addressed to American newspapers, a “scandalous decision” and “political revenge”.
Environmental NGOs, on the contrary, welcome the decision before Donald Trump came to power, which contests the reality of human-caused climate change. “It’s a historic victory for the oceans,” Joseph Gordon, for the NGO Oceana, has already reacted, anticipating the announcement.
