U.S. President Biden Joe Biden announced today the issuance of new Presidential Memoranda aimed at permanently protecting coastal areas from offshore drilling by prohibiting future oil and natural gas leasing across more than 625 million acres of the U.S. ocean.

Areas covered by the new leasing bans include entire eastern U.S. Atlantic coast and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Coast along California, Oregon, and Washington, and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska.

The move comes only weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to “drill, baby, drill” is set to take office. In a statement blasting the Biden administration’s move, Karoline Leavitt, selected by Trump as incoming White House Press Secretary, said:

“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.”

According to a White House statement, the new orders “build upon the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious climate agenda.” President Biden has made climate action a key focus of his administration, with high profile initiatives including returning the U.S. to the Paris Agreement on his first day in office – after President Trump formally withdrew from the agreement in 2020. The administration’s key climate achievements include the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which combine to include allocations of nearly $500 billion to climate-focused investments in areas including carbon-free energy, manufacturing and clean technologies.

More recently, in the weeks following the 2024 election, the Biden administration announced a new goal to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 61% – 66% by 2035, on a 2005 basis, expressing confidence the U.S.’ ability to achieve the new goal, even in the absence of a climate focus by the federal government, driven by investments put in place over the past four years, and action at the state, local and private level.

A statement issued by President Biden announcing the new orders expressed bipartisan support for the ban on new offshore drilling, citing “Republican and Democratic Governors, Members of Congress, and coastal communities alike” that “called for greater protection of our ocean and coastlines from harms that offshore oil and natural gas drilling can bring.” Biden added 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.”

Biden added:

“We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low. Those are false choices. Protecting America’s coasts and ocean is the right thing to do, and will help communities and the economy to flourish for generations to come.”