Experts sound alarm as Biden’s offshore drilling ban backfires on environment: ‘Shameful’

President Biden’s 11th-hour executive order banning new drilling and further oil and natural gas development in coastal waters in the name of environmental protection could end up harming the environment, according to experts who spoke to Fox News Digital.

Earlier this month, Biden announced the ban will affect more than 625 million acres of US coastal and offshore waters while invoking the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, which could mean President-elect Donald Trump will be limited in his ability to revoke the measure without Congress.

Biden published a statement defending its action, arguing that “the relatively minimal fossil fuel potential in the areas I am withdrawing does not justify the environmental, public health, and economic risks that would arise from new leasing and drilling.”

Experts who spoke to Fox News Digital suggested that Biden’s decision could ultimately harm the environment rather than help it.

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“President Biden’s offshore oil and gas ban is not only harmful to our economy and national security, it also threatens the future of conservation in America,” Gabriella Hoffman, director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum, told Fox News Digital.

Among other things, Hoffman pointed to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is funded in large part by $900 million in royalties from oil and gas companies.

“It was a simple idea: to use the proceeds from the depletion of one natural resource – offshore oil and gas – to support the conservation of another precious resource – our land and water,” the foundation said. the website states. That fund is likely to lose out on those royalties as a result of Biden’s decision, Hoffman warned.

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“President Trump signed the Great American Open Space Act into law in 2020 to permanently fund the LWCF,” Hoffman said. “Biden’s recent actions will weaken this law and set back genuine conservation efforts by decades.”

The Western Energy Alliance, a non-profit trade association, issued a press release earlier this month warning that conservation funding will take a hit as a result of Biden’s drilling ban.

“By trying to limit offshore access before it gets out, President Biden is also threatening cherished outdoor spaces across the country. The president completely ignores the fact that the Land and Water Conservation Fund is solely funded by offshore oil and natural gas leasing and production,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance , she said in a press release.

“Nearly every community across the country has a park or outdoor recreation facility that has received LWCF funding. National parks struggling with degradation and damage from overcrowding similarly benefit from marine revenue. These funds help protect aquatic roads, support wildlife and build trails and playgrounds. President Biden has threatened the future of these projects with his executive order.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, which oversees the LWCF, said: “There would be no effect on existing leases (or royalties derived from them for the US Treasury), nor on the LWCF.”

The spokesman added: “The President’s withdrawal does not affect the Central and Western Gulf, where LCWF funding comes from.”

Hoffman told Fox News Digital that while Biden’s directive “will not affect the LWCF in the short term, with the legacy of Trump-era leasing, the long-term impact could put $2.8 billion in conservation funding — including $900 million from offshore royalties — at risk.”

In addition, the reduction in oil drilling in the United States is likely to cause the United States to become more dependent on foreign sources of oil, often in countries with less environmental protection than those that exist in the United States.

“Biden’s anti-oil and gas order could undermine the president-elect’s ‘drill baby drill’ Trump agenda and make us more dependent on imports from environmentally unscrupulous foreign countries,” Hoffman told Fox News Digital.

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Power The Future founder and CEO Daniel Turner echoed environmental concerns as well as human rights to Fox News Digital.

“We are forcing responsible, ethical, environmentally sensitive resource development out of America and into developing countries, often run by Communist China, where pollution and slave labor are unchecked and accepted,” Turner said. “In fact, these conditions often help profit margins, and we say, ‘these goods are cheaper made in China.’ They are cheaper because of what China is doing, and our standards have to force us to choose.”

Turner continued, “Saudi Arabia and Kuwait flare methane. It’s illegal in most of America. Coal is mined by children in China and Indonesia and all over Southeast Asia. Rare earths are mined by slaves in Africa, and green activists are making sure it continues. if such mining occurs ethically and responsibly in America.”

Turner questioned how the Biden administration can claim that “oil produced irresponsibly in foreign countries and unloaded on tankers burning millions of gallons of diesel” is considered “green.”

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“If we really want to be green, we’re going to do everything we can to produce all our energy and mine all our raw materials here in America,” Turner said. “Not only is it greener, it’s better for our economy and our national security.”

Fox News Digital reached out The white house for comment, but did not receive a response.

Trump he said he plans to immediately overturn the ban on drilling along much of the US coast, but faces major obstacles under the 70-year-old, irrevocable law.

“This is a shameful decision designed to take political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden it’s not going to work, and we’re going to drill, baby, drill,” Trump spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in a statement.

Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report