A view of the Esther offshore oil and gas platform in the Pacific Ocean on January 5, 2025 in Seal Beach, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump he said on Tuesday that he would change the president Joe Bidenban offshore drilling along much of the US coast as soon as he takes office.
“I’m going to overturn it on day one,” Trump said at a news conference, although he indicated that overturning the ban could require a lawsuit.
Biden announced Monday that he would protect 625 million acres of ocean from offshore oil and gas drilling along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s northern Bering Sea. The president issued the ban through a provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Land Act of 1953.
Trump’s order trying to overturn the ban is likely to end up in court and could eventually be overturned.
During his first term, Trump tried to issue an executive order that would change the way President Barack Obama uses the law to protect Arctic and Atlantic waters from offshore drilling. A federal court eventually ruled that Trump’s order was not legal and that overturning the ban would require an act of Congress.
The Republican Party has a majority in both houses of the new Congress.
