President Joe Biden has permanently closed off much of the nation’s coasts from prospective offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.
The move, announced Monday as Biden wraps up his presidency, includes more than 330 million acres of the Atlantic outer continental shelf, from Canada to the southern tip of Florida, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the West Coast, and the remainder of Alaska’s northern Bering Sea.
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Everyone from coastal advocates to typically opposite-of-the-aisle politicians representing North Carolina coastal communities, which have overwhelmingly opposed offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling, lauded the president’s action.
Wilmington City Councilman and Republican Charlie Rivenbark introduced a resolution opposing seismic airgun testing and offshore drilling off the North Carolina coast to fellow board members nearly 10 years ago.
The board unanimously adopted the resolution, aligning the Port City with dozens of other North Carolina municipalities and counties opposed to then-President Barack Obama’s administration’s plan to open waters off the Southeast coast to oil exploration.
“I would still be opposed to offshore drilling anywhere, particularly along the North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia coasts, and I’m glad President Biden’s doing this on his way out,” Rivenbark said Monday morning. “This to me is almost a nonpartisan issue. I grew up on the coast. I know the other side has got terrific arguments and reasons why, but I just can’t take a chance at an oil spill.”
That sentiment has resonated throughout not only coastal North Carolina, but also across the state over the course of the last several years.
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Concerns about the potential for oil spills were specifically cited in the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s April 2019 resolution that opposes offshore drilling.
The resolution, which was adopted unanimously, pointed to impacts from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and several scientific studies that raise concerns about seismic testing on marine mammals and fisheries.
“Seismic surveys and offshore drilling are just not compatible with our coast,” North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis said in an email response to Coastal Review Monday. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.
“Keeping our coast healthy, thriving and free of oil spills is crucial for the survival and prosperity of our communities, and is at the heart of our work at the Federation,” Davis said. “For decades now, North Carolina’s opposition to offshore oil and gas has been largely bipartisan. Even under ideal conditions, drilling operations release a number of dangerous pollutants into the ocean, not to mention the potential for larger spills that can devastate local tourism and fisheries.”
Governors of both Atlantic and Pacific coastal states pushed back on President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to expand offshore drilling during his first tenure in the White House.
In fall 2020, Trump announced he was withdrawing federal waters off the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Florida from the possibility of drilling for oil and gas. The 10-year moratorium he established ends in 2032.
Michelle Bivins, Oceana’s Carolinas Field Campaigns representative, said Monday afternoon that Biden’s announcement “essentially codifies those protections and makes them permanent.”
“As for Trump reversing this policy once he’s in office, during his last presidency he protected the South Atlantic from the threat of offshore drilling for almost 10 years, following bipartisan support. He knows that coastal economies and businesses depend on healthy, oil-free oceans,” she said.
Shortly after the White House announced the ban Monday morning, the American Petroleum Institute, or API, released a statement calling for the reversal of Biden’s withdrawal the offshore areas from future oil and natural gas leasing.
“American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers stated in a release. “Congress and the incoming administration should fully leverage the nation’s vast offshore resources as a critical source of affordable energy, government revenue and stability around the world. We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”
Two separate but similar letters – one signed by members of the U.S. Senate, the other signed by House representatives – calling late last year for Biden to implement the ban pointed out that presidential withdrawals had not been successfully challenged in court.
Trump in 2017 reversed Obama’s Arctic and Atlantic withdrawals. A district court judge in Alaska ruled presidents do not have authority under the law, in this case the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to revoke prior withdrawals.
“A large-scale withdrawal of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Eastern Gulf from fossil fuel development while maintain the development of renewable energy solutions would provide durable protections for these critical areas,” according to the Dec. 19, 2024, letter signed by nine U.S. senators.
The areas included in the withdrawal encompass more than 625 million acres, the largest in the country’s history, according to the U.S. Department of Interior.
“President Biden’s actions today are part of our work across this Administration to make bold and enduring changes that recognize the impact of oil and gas drilling on our nation’s coastlines,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a release. “Today, the President is taking action that reflects what states, Tribes and local communities have shared with us – a strong and overwhelming need to support resilient oceans and coastlines by protecting them from unnecessary oil and gas development.”
The withdrawals do not affect rights under existing leases, of which there are about 30 off the southern California coast and about a dozen in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to the release.
In fiscal 2023, production in the outer continental shelf resulted in about 675 million barrels of oil and 796 billion cubic feet of gas. Almost all of that production is in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, “where industry has yet to produce on more than 80 percent of the 12 million acres already under lease,” according to the release.
The current leasing program that runs through 2029 includes three potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico planning areas. Those areas are not included in the withdrawal.
