Trump Plans to ‘Unban’ Biden’s ‘Ridiculous’ Decision to Block Oil Drilling Along Coastlines
Biden banned offshore drilling along the East and West coasts, totaling 625 million acres.
President-elect Donald Trump told Hugh Hewitt that he would reverse President Joe Biden’s ban on oil drilling along America’s coastlines.
Biden banned offshore drilling along the East and West coasts, totaling 625 million acres. He justified the move under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
Trump told Hewitt:
It’s ridiculous. I’ll unban it immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately. What’s he doing? Why is he doing it?
You know, we have something that nobody else has. I mean nobody has to the extent we have it and it’ll be more by the time we finish because I’ll be able to expand, you know, we’re going to expand our country and it’ll be more.
We have oil and gas and whether you manufacture widgets or gidgets or whatever you happen to be doing, some countries have to work very hard to do that and we do, too, and we will.
But we have oil and gas at a level that nobody else has and we’re going to take advantage of it.
When I see somebody saying he’s going to ban 625 million acres, he doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t even know what 625 million acres would look like. And we can’t let that happen to our country.
It’s our greatest, it’s really our greatest economic asset and we’re not going to let that happen to our country.
You can watch the full 26-minute interview here:
Unfortunately, Trump cannot undo Biden’s executive order.
Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), a law established in 1953, states, “the President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Trump needs Congress to change the law. That could happen since the GOP controls the House and Senate.
No one can receive a lease to drill for oil, gas, or other minerals in those areas.
OCSLA lacks language that allows a future president to undo an executive order under Section 12(a).
Former President Barack Obama issued a similar executive order on December 20, 2016.
In April 2017, Trump signed an executive order to undo Obama’s order.
Activist groups challenged Trump’s order.
In 2019, US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, based in Alaska, overturned Trump’s executive order, leaving in place Obama’s protection of the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea and the East Coast of America.
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Comments
He’ll unban it, and in the blink of an eye multiple lawsuits will be filed in multiple jurisdictions by the usual suspects claiming he doesn’t have the right to do so, with their additional goal of bottling this up in the courts for years.
looks like the Republican majority, House of Representatives and Republican majority Senate are going to actually have to pass legislation so that the next president can reverse this executive action
How was banning off-shore drilling legal in the first place?!? The federal government has been doing so many things that should be left to the states! Education and health care are among the unconstitutional entities they have messed up. If Biden can ban it, Trump can unban it!
The total lack of cooperation by people on the left will eventually lead to their demise, their failure, and whatever in the heck else they own. It is stupidity beyond stupidity.
Disallowing a future President and the will of the people that elected him for change sure does seem problematic here.
Handing out pardons and medals like he is some sort of a great and powerful Oz while a tin man and a cowardly lion operate the wheels and levers behind the curtain while a scarecrow reads gauges and interprets data.
Biden is a straight-up fucking joke…excuse the crass language but damn!
Come on, man!
Trump plans to unban Biden’s bans and also has lots of other plans.
Biden’s post-presidential plans will soon come to an end due his rapid cognitive decline.
Why don’t we conduct Biden’s funeral as a BOGO with Carter’s? The dotard will lap up all the unearned praise. Then he can be buried in sand up to his neck on Rehoboth Beach.
And the cognitive decline will un-Biden Biden. We will not see him again until Obama does his eulogy.
It might be legally difficult to reverse because Biden’s executive order clearly states: No takebacks.
Biden does well enough to remember his name!
Why didn’t they appeal the 2019 decision?
Agree. The language of the law doesn’t explicitly or implicitly say the withdrawn land CANNOT ever be put back into use.
One judge interpreted it that way, but another could easily see it otherwise. Better to have Congress amend, but… we don’t have a congress interested in America’s best interests.
One guess is that they ran out of time. Biden’s handlers surely wouldn’t contest it.
Please, America, do not manufacture any more gidgets.
Or fondas. Or whoopis. Or maisies, madcows, or liawathas.
We don’t like them. We really, really don’t like them.
They were not manufactured. They evolved. And that is proof that the second law of thermodynamics is valid.
If they will not let Trump undo this, then Trump might suggest some EO that he might do that they would not like.
I think that he can make it very unpleasant such that they will want to change the law as to what EOs can be undone.
Trump himself banned drilling along the Atlantic south
I live in Texas, the oil drilling has destroyed the coastline
When you walk on the sand your feet will be black from the oil that has seeped down under the sand
It’s horrible and I can only wonder the animals of the sea have to deal with
And the water is so cloudy, and has plenty of chemicals in it
Tar balls and oil leakage happened historically in Santa Barbara prior to drilling due to the extensive oil deposits. Oil drilling can actually minimize this issue, relieving some of the pressure causing it to seep to the surface. I am sure Texas has had similar issues. Now any oil leaks like the BP and far worse one Mexico had – those can be problematic.
I think it would be safer to ship our oil in Gigantic oil tankers from half way around the world than to drill locally.
I believe Trump issued a temporary ten year moratorium not a permanent ban. That’s a very important distinction.
While we got Congress working on amending this any other delegated powers to the Executive to ensure that what one POTUS does can be undone by another let’s make damn sure to amend the Antiquities Act to make the maximum size 4 square miles around the center point of whatever ‘monument’ is being set off limits.
The Antiquities Act should be repealed altogether. There is no reason why the president should have that sort of power. If a site is important, let Congress make it a national park. If it doesn’t want to then it can’t be that important.
All existing national monuments should either be converted into national parks or abolished.
That works for me as well. At minimum the maximum size for any ‘monument’ designation under the Antiquities Act has got to be reduced to 4 square miles. That’s 2,560 acres which is plenty big enough for a ‘monument’. Retroactively reduce the size of all previous designations to reflect that and as you state require the Congress to vote to make future decisions to set up National Parks.
Can the claim be made that the “President” at the time lacked capacity to issue such an order?
Ask any and every court if someone senile, lacking capacity, unable to complete even the simplest mental acuity test be allowed to issue an order, any order? I understand the rule, but this president is not competent enough to order breakfast off the menu. Surely that counts for something?
No, because by all reports he has good days and bad days, and you can’t prove that any given order was made on a bad day. Without proof that an order is invalid we have to presume it’s valid.