This map from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management shows where President Biden’s executive orders restrict new offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters. (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling President Biden put in place on his way out of office doesn’t apply to federal waters off the Louisiana coast, but state Attorney General Liz Murrill is challenging the action she calls “blatantly illegal.”
Through executive orders on Jan. 6, Biden extended a prohibition for new wells on 625 acres of ocean bottom, stretching over the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s northern Bering Sea. His action built upon a ban incoming President Donald Trump put in place off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina five years ago.
Murrill filed a lawsuit Friday with the U.S. District Court for Western District of Louisiana in Lake Charles. It seeks to block Biden’s ban from taking effect immediately through an injunction while she seeks to have it permanently discarded in federal court. Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Georgia and Mississippi have joined as plaintiffs so far.
“Two weeks before Inauguration Day, Biden purported to ban virtually all oil and gas leasing along the Lower 48 States’ coastline and a significant portion along Alaska’s coastline,” Murril said in a statement. “The ban is blatantly illegal! If upheld, it would dramatically harm our economy and livelihood.”
When issuing his orders, Biden cited the powers provided to the president under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Murrill disputes that in her lawsuit, arguing only Congress has the authority to “regulate property” through offshore energy leasing and isn’t allowed to transfer that power to another branch of government without specific guidance.
Lawmakers did not give Biden “the sweeping authority that no other President has claimed to have,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
In addition to Biden, defendants in Murrill’s lawsuit include outgoing Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and the leadership of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Questions remain over the ability of Trump to reverse Biden’s orders after he takes office Monday. It would likely fall to Congress to override the ban.
Energy industry analysts have said Biden’s ban is not likely to have an immediate impact on offshore oil and gas exploration, which accounts for 15% of U.S. fossil fuel production. Exploration in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, which includes waters off the Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama coasts, isn’t affected under Biden’s orders.
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