Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - Biden Removes Vast Offshore Areas from Drilling, But Impact is Largely Symbolic

RBN Energy Blogcast

With just a few days left in office, President Biden on January 6 made a final effort to shape U.S. energy policy and development by permanently banning new oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of coastal waters. Using an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Land Shelf Act (OCLSA), the president signed an executive order banning future drilling in federal waters off the Eastern Seaboard, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the West Coast and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska. The ban is largely just for show, but in today’s RBN blog we’ll discuss why it might cause headaches for the “drill, baby, drill” Trump administration.