‘Disgraceful Decision’: Trump Press Secretary Blasts Biden’s Move To Block More Offshore Drilling

President Joe Biden was blasted by incoming Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday after Bloomberg reported that the president plans to ban new offshore oil and gas developments in some areas of the U.S. coast “within days.”

Biden’s expected move comes after he has faced pressure from Democrats and left-wing environmentalists to block offshore drilling before President-elect Donald Trump takes over on January 20. Trump has promised to increase American energy production and make it easier for oil and gas companies to drill in U.S. waters and on American land. Leavitt vowed that Biden’s effort to block oil drilling would “fail” after Trump takes office.

“Joe Biden clearly wants high gas prices to be his legacy. This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices,” Leavitt said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. “Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”

Bloomberg reported that Biden’s executive order would be based on a 1953 law that gives the president the power to permanently stop offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters without explicitly giving presidents the power to revoke oil drilling bans enacted by their predecessors. The law, titled the “Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act,” gives the federal government jurisdiction over the outer continental shelf and puts the Department of the Interior (DOI) in charge of leasing sections of the submerged land for oil and gas development.

In his first term, Trump signed an executive order to rescind former President Barack Obama’s orders to withdraw hundreds of millions of acres of submerged land on the outer continental shelf. Obama’s move to block offshore drilling was also based on the 1953 law. Legal experts are divided on whether the 70-year-old law allows presidents to rescind a predecessor’s decision to withdraw land on the outer continental shelf.

In 2023, Biden severely cut back on how many spots the government leases to oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico, allowing “a maximum of three potential oil and gas lease sales – the fewest oil and gas lease sales in history – in the Gulf of Mexico Program Area scheduled in 2025, 2027 and 2029,” according to the DOI. Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced a slate of environmental rules for Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, including banning energy development along a large portion of the range for the next 20 years.

Trump has promised to revamp American energy production and said on the campaign trail that he would seek to cut Americans’ energy costs by 50%, arguing that lowering energy bills is the key to tackling economic hardships.