U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce on Monday, January 6, a ban on the development of oil and gas fields on the shelf of a significant part of the U.S. coastal territory. This is reported by Bloomberg citing its sources, reports UNN.
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President Joe Biden plans to impose a ban on oil and gas extraction on 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, prohibiting the sale of drilling rights in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico.
This step is a large-scale attempt to permanently protect the coastal waters - and the regions that depend on them - from fossil fuel extraction and the risk of oil spills. At the same time, Biden leaves the "door open" for new oil and natural gas leasing in the central and western parts of the Gulf of Mexico, where drilling has been going on for several decades and where approximately 14% of the country's total fuel production is currently produced.
As Bloomberg writes, Biden's decision, which will be announced on Monday, will further strengthen his authority in the fight against climate change, deepening his reputation as a supporter of environmental conservation and zero-emission energy.
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Unlike other steps taken by Biden to limit fossil fuel extraction and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, this step may have a long-term character, complicating Trump's intention to increase oil and gas production in the domestic market. As the publication notes, this is due to the fact that Biden's planned announcement is based on a 72-year-old provision of federal law, which gives presidents broad freedom of action to withdraw American waters from oil leasing without direct permission to repeal the ban.
Presidents of both parties - including Trump - have invoked this law to protect coral reefs, walrus feeding grounds, and other American waters from Florida to Alaska. And although presidents have made changes to their predecessors' decisions to release territories from oil leasing, the courts have never approved a complete repeal.
Democrats in Congress and environmental groups have lobbied for Biden's idea to maximize permanent protective measures against offshore drilling in order to safeguard vulnerable coastal areas, protect marine ecosystems from oil spills, and combat climate change. Some environmental activists disagreed on the optimal approach, fearing that too broad a declaration could jeopardize the legal instrument used to preserve special marine zones since 1953.
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