Summary
President Joe Biden invoked the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect 625 million acres of U.S. offshore waters from future oil and gas drilling, blocking areas along the East and West coasts, Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s North Bering Sea.
The move aims to prevent environmental damage and hinder Donald Trump’s plans to expand fossil fuel production upon returning to office.
Trump allies and the oil industry criticized the decision as politically motivated, while Biden emphasized bipartisan support for protecting coastal regions.
Anything Biden can do with the stroke of a pen, Trump can undo, right? I’m all for it, but I really don’t feel like things are as protected as these articles imply.
This particular law allows the president to designate protected areas, but doesn’t give them the authority to remove that designation. Trump would need either an act of Congress or the Supreme Court to take down the law as unconstitutional.
Oh I guess we’re going with that one then. :(
This one is tricker to undo. But he’s an authoritarian and he has court that likes his authoritarian policies, so who knows.
Anything Biden can do with the stroke of a pen Trump can executive order and undo because he will be king.
SCOTUS has ruled that Trump is above the law.
Depends. If there’s no preexisting law then yes, he can just cancel orders. But presidents aren’t supposed to be able to override the law.
If there’s a law and it has administrative requirements for revoking a particular status, then one president can order the agency administering it to consider putting something under that status, and the next one has to follow that same laws requirements on how to end that status - and it might not have a provision that next president can put to use.
Official act.