Can Trump reverse Biden's offshore oil drilling ban?

In an executive order issued on Monday, President Donald Trump revoked the ban placed by former Democratic president Joe Biden against new offshore oil-and-gas development along most of America's coasts. Trump will face legal challenges regarding his authority.

What did BIDEN and Trump do?

Biden used his authority, granted by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1970, to stop oil and gas drilling in federal waters along the East and Western coasts of the United States as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico. He also halted the drilling of portions of the northern Bering sea of Alaska.

Biden said that the move was in line with his efforts to fight climate change. He stated, "drilling offshore these coasts can cause irreversible damages to places we cherish and is not necessary to meet our nation’s energy needs."

Trump has long promised to expand oil-and-gas development. He lifted the offshore drilling ban Monday. This was one of many actions that Biden had taken and which Trump rescinded in his first day as president.

Trump also revoked a previous action Biden had taken in March 2023, which prevented oil and natural gas drilling on 2.8 million acres of the Arctic Ocean.

Can Trump do that?

Legal experts have said that the legal question of whether or not a president may revoke the decision made by a previous president to invoke the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and withdraw certain areas from mineral leases and drilling is still unresolved.

The law of 1953 expressly grants the presidents the power to reserve lands. However, it is silent as to whether or not they can revoke previous decisions. This question was only addressed in court once, during Trump’s first administration.

What was that case?

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit after Trump issued, in April 2017, an executive order intended to revoke the decision of Democratic former president Barack Obama. Obama invoked OCSLA to put off limits oil leasing in the Arctic Chukchi Sea and part of Arctic Beaufort Sea. He also excluded a large area of Atlantic Ocean near the U.S. East Coast.

U.S. District judge Sharon Gleason ruled in Anchorage that Trump's order is illegal. She wrote that Congress could have explicitly granted the President revocation power in several of its upland laws.

In defending its order, Trump's administration cited language from the OCSLA that stated a president could "from time-to-time" withdraw unleased land. They claimed this authority included the right to review previous withdrawal decisions.

Gleason, a Obama-appointed judge, said in her ruling that the OSCLA only gave Congress the power to reverse land withdrawals.

Before the San Francisco 9th U.S. Before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could decide on Trump's administration appeal of her ruling, Biden assumed office and on his very first day revoked Trump’s order, mooting this case.

Will TRUMP'S new order end up in court as well?

Trump's executive action to undo Biden’s action is likely to invite a legal challenge from the environmentalists, and could settle the question about a president’s revocation power.

The order of Biden is being challenged in court by two different lawsuits. One by the Republican Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton and oil and gas producer W&T Offshore, and another by five Republican state attorneys general, two industry trade associations, American Petroleum Institute, and Gulf Energy Alliance. (Reporting and editing by Alexia Garamfalvi in Boston. Michael Perry, David Gregorio, and Michael Perry).

(source: Reuters)