President Biden’s 11th-hour executive action banning new drilling and further oil and natural gas development in coastal waters in the name of protecting the environment could end up causing harm to the environment, according to experts who spoke to Fox News Digital.
Earlier this month, Biden announced the ban will affect more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal and offshore waters while invoking the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which could mean President-elect Donald Trump will be limited in his ability to revoke the action without Congress.
Biden released a statement defending his action, arguing that the ‘relatively minimal fossil fuel potential in the areas I am withdrawing do not justify the environmental, public health, and economic risks that would come from new leasing and drilling.’
Experts who spoke to Fox News Digital suggested that the environment could ultimately end up being harmed, not helped, by Biden’s decision.
‘President Biden’s offshore oil and gas ban is not only harmful to our economy and national security, but also jeopardizes the future of conservation in America,’ Gabriella Hoffman, Independent Women’s Forum Center for Energy & Conservation director, told Fox News Digital.
Hoffman pointed to, among other concerns, the Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is funded in large part by $900 million in royalties from oil and gas companies.
‘It was a simple idea: use revenues from the depletion of one natural resource – offshore oil and gas – to support the conservation of another precious resource – our land and water,’ the fund’s website states. That fund will presumably lose out on those royalties as a result of Biden’s decision, Hoffman warned.
‘President Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law in 2020 to permanently fund the LWCF,’ Hoffman said. ‘Biden’s recent actions will weaken this law and set back true conservation efforts by decades.’
The Western Energy Alliance, a nonprofit trade association, issued a press release earlier this month warning that conservation funding will take a hit as a result of Biden’s drilling ban.
‘By attempting to restrict offshore access before walking out the door, President Biden also threatens treasured outdoor spaces across the country. The president completely ignores the fact that the Land and Water Conservation Fund is exclusively funded by offshore oil and natural gas leasing and production,’ Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance, said in the press release.
‘Nearly every community nationwide has a park or outdoor recreation facility that has received funding from the LWCF. National parks that have struggled with dilapidation and damages from overcrowding similarly benefit from offshore revenues. These funds help protect water ways, support wildlife, and build trails and playgrounds. President Biden put the future of these projects at risk with his Executive Order.’
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, who oversees the LWCF, said, ‘There would be no effect to any existing leases (or royalties derived from them for the U.S. treasury), nor the LWCF.’
The spokesperson added, ‘The Central and Western Gulf, where funding from LCWF comes from, is not impacted by the President’s withdrawal.’
Hoffman told Fox News Digital that Biden’s directive, ‘won’t impact LWCF in the short-term, with Trump-era leasing grandfathered in, the long-term impact could put $2.8B of conservation funding- including $900M from offshore royalties – at risk.’
Additionally, cutting oil drilling in the United States is likely to drive the United States to become more dependent on foreign sources of oil, often in countries with less environmental protections than those that exist in the United States.
‘Biden’s anti-oil and gas decree could undermine president-elect Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ agenda and make us more dependent on imports from foreign countries that don’t respect the environment,’ Hoffman told Fox News Digital.
Power The Future founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner echoed the concerns about the environment as well as human rights to Fox News Digital.
‘We are driving responsible, ethical, environmentally sensitive resource development out of America and into developing nations, often managed by communist China, where pollution and slave labor are unchecked and accepted,’ Turner said. ‘In fact, oftentimes those conditions help with profit margins, and we say ‘these goods are cheaper made in China.’ They are cheaper because of what China does, and our standards must force us to choose.’
Turner continued, ‘Saudi Arabia and Kuwait flare methane. In most of America, this is illegal. Coal is mined by children in China and Indonesia and across Southeast Asia. Rare Earths are mined by slaves in Africa, and green activists ensure this continues by preventing such mining to occur ethically and responsibly in America.’
Turner questioned how the Biden administration can argue that ‘oil produced irresponsibly in foreign countries and landed on tankers burning millions of gallons of diesel’ is considered ‘green.’
‘If we truly want to be green, we will do everything we can to produce all our energy and mine all our raw materials here in America,’ Turner said. ‘It is not only greener, it is better for our economy and our national security.’
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response.
Trump has said he plans to immediately reverse the drilling ban along most of the U.S. coastline, but he faces major roadblocks under a 70-year, irrevocable law.
‘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. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill,’ Trump’s spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement.
Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report
