With just two weeks remaining as president, Joe Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling for the entire U.S. East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico and sections of the North Bering Sea in Alaska. The move will ban fossil fuel extraction from nearly 2.5 million square kilometers (977,000 square miles) of federal water, an area larger than Texas and Alaska combined. More than 90% of Alaska’s federal water will still be open to drilling as well as the central and western Gulf of Mexico. The exempted regions are the most productive areas in the country for offshore oil and gas. The areas included in the ban are not central to U.S. oil production. There are currently no federal leases on the U.S. East Coast and there hasn’t been a federal sale off the California coast since 1984. The move will only affect leases for new offshore drilling and not projects currently underway, so the ban is “not particularly consequential for U.S. exploration and production going forward,” Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told CNN. Nonetheless, fossil fuel interests say the move could hamstring their ability to ensure a steady supply of domestic oil and gas. In a statement, American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said, “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.” In a…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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