By Scott Patterson

WASHINGTON -- President Biden is planning to ban oil and gas drilling in certain federal waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans using a decades-old law that could make it difficult for the incoming Trump administration to reverse.

Here's what to know about the expected ban:

The Details:

The decree, which could come as soon as next week, is expected to invoke the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which gives the president wide latitude to withdraw from consideration currently unleased lands in federal offshore waters, according to people familiar with the White House plans. The law has been invoked a handful of times and doesn't include a procedure for a new president to undo actions by a predecessor.

The law was tested during President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, which attempted to reopen swaths of the Arctic Ocean that the Obama administration put off limits weeks before Trump first took office in 2017. A federal judge in 2019 ruled that Trump would need congressional authority to reopen drilling in the Arctic areas that Obama had banned.

A spokesman for the Trump transition team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A White House official declined to comment.

Bloomberg earlier reported that Biden was preparing to issue the decree.

The Context:

Trump said on the campaign trail that he would unleash oil drilling in the U.S., part of his promise to rapidly cut American's energy costs by 50% or more. He has argued that faster permitting, weakened environmental regulations and other measures will unleash production of oil and natural gas and push down prices at the pump.

U.S. oil production reached record levels under Biden, and it is unclear whether American oil giants favor massive increases in domestic drilling, which could further push down prices.

One of Biden's chief policy efforts has been the advancement of clean-energy technologies that would help reduce the risk of climate change. Those technologies, which include electric vehicles and solar and wind energy, are meant to displace consumption of oil and gas, which produce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

The fossil-fuel industry favors the less-restrictive policies of Trump, who has bashed Biden's clean-energy agenda.

The Big Picture:

The last-minute move by Biden is part of a sweeping effort to shore up his environmental legacy in the final months of his administration, which is also distributing billions of dollars to safeguard favored projects before Trump takes office.

The administration has aimed to protect clean-energy projects at ports around the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency in October awarded billions of dollars to dozens of ports to invest in new solar arrays, decarbonized trucks and other green equipment.

One of the Biden administration's most aggressive moves is coming from a $400 billion clean-energy lending program inside the Energy Department. In December, the office said it would provide a record $15 billion low-interest loan commitment to California utility company PG&E to support hundreds of projects aimed at fighting the effects of climate change and improving the electrical grid.

--Andrew Restuccia and Tarini Parti contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 03, 2025 11:58 ET (16:58 GMT)

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