In its final days, the Biden administration delivers big time for America’s coastal communities

By Ben Jealous — 

It may be the dead of winter, but when we think about our beaches none of us want to picture them covered in oil. That is true for those of us who live along the water and those who live hundreds of miles from any ocean. Regardless of our generation, we can all picture what it looks like. For some, it is the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.

For others, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. No matter what disaster comes to mind, we can all agree on one thing: we must protect our waters and our coastal communities. President Biden not only agrees, he just took decisive action to prevent future disasters from happening.

This week, in the waning days of his administration, President Biden announced he would use his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently withdraw 625 million acres from leasing for oil and gas drilling and exploration off our nation’s coasts. The protected waters include the entire eastern Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.

This move is the latest chapter in Biden’s historic climate legacy. It safeguards coastal communities and economies, marine wildlife, and ecosystems from the threats posed by offshore drilling. It will protect the health of those living closest to the pollution and other negative effects of offshore drilling. And it will bolster the already-underway clean energy transition that ends our reliance on fossil fuels, strengthens our economy with family-sustaining jobs, and makes our air and water cleaner and safer.

This latest action marks a major stride in the Biden administration’s America the Beautiful initiative to conserve, restore, and protect 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030 (often called “30 by 30”). It is one more feather in the cap of an administration that has shown remarkable dedication to conservation with the creation and expansion of national monuments, protections for millions of acres in the Arctic, and priority shifts at key agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service.

And it is a move that should be popular with Americans of all political stripes. Strong bipartisan majorities oppose offshore drilling. Sixty percent of Americans opposed efforts by the first Trump administration to lift offshore drilling bans. In the 17 states along the coasts that would have been impacted, 64% opposed lifting the ban. Coastal communities, business groups, and governors of both parties oppose offshore drilling. Presidents of both parties – including every president in the 21st century – have used their Section 12a authority to remove portions of the US coastline from oil and gas drilling. And bills that would ban offshore drilling have enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.

Despite propaganda from Big Oil and Gas, this is a major win for all Americans and especially those in communities that depend on coastal waters for their livelihoods and local economies. It is a win for every American, as the climate crisis increasingly impacts all of us. Prices at the pump will not go up (the cost of gasoline is determined by global oil prices and consumer demand, not changes to federal leasing policy). There is no evidence that expanded leasing and domestic production in federal waters would lower heating bills. And it is a win for endangered marine mammals, fisheries, and ecosystems along most US coast lines.

No matter what propaganda corporate polluters push, the fact remains there will never be a safe way to desecrate our waters to extract fossil fuels. This is why we must keep pushing to protect the central and western Gulf of Mexico as well, where oil and gas drilling is already deeply established. The communities, species, and ecosystems of this region continue to shoulder the environmental and health hazards brought on by widespread fossil fuel development. Indeed, another spill catastrophe in this region could lead to devastating public health, economic, and extinction-level impacts.

As we continue our transition to a clean energy economy, we can look forward to a day when all of America’s waters and coasts are protected from the harms of offshore drilling. When that day comes, we will look back on this move by President Biden as perhaps the biggest step that got us there.

In the meantime, it is not too early to say: Thank you, President Biden. There are still some crucial remaining days to this president. Let’s encourage the president to keep taking bold action until the very last day.

Ben Jealous is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club and a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.