President Barack Obama is unilaterally blocking the government from issuing new offshore drilling leases in large parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, which media outlets have described as “permanent.”
But just how “permanent” is Obama’s offshore ban? Not at all.
It’s only “permanent” if President-elect Donald Trump or Congress choose not to challenge it.
On Tuesday, Obama designated “the vast majority of U.S. waters in 
the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing.” He was joined by and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who ordered “all Arctic Canadian waters as indefinitely off limits to future offshore Arctic oil and gas licensing.”
Environmentalists have been urging him for months to use Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law, to block offshore drilling. Obama’s order is quite unprecedented, and possibly hard to overturn — at least, that’s what activists hope.
Activists argue the law does not give a future president the power to undo a drilling ban. To be fair, there’s no case law on the matter. An effort by Trump to reverse the designation would likely be battled out in the courts for years.
“It’s never been done before,” Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School, told The New York Times’ Coral Davenport. “There is no case law on this. It’s uncharted waters.”
Past presidents have used the 1953 law to make swaths of ocean off-limits to drilling, and subsequent presidents have scaled back these designations but never done away with them entirely.
“They’ll be arguing about this for years in the courts,” Parenteau said.
Trump, however, will have a Republican-controlled Congress. Lawmakers could amend or even repeal the 1953 law to explicitly allow presidents to undo drilling bans set in place by their predecessors.
The only potential problem would be getting 60 votes in the Senate, but there are some pro-oil Democrats who could cross the aisle to join Republicans.
On the other hand, low oil prices have dampened oil companies’ willingness to drill offshore. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is becoming more efficient , and drilling offshore requires huge capital investments.
Indeed, a Royal Dutch Shell said its 2015 exploratory oil rig “found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well, but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration in the Burger prospect.” Oil was too cheap to justify the multi-billion dollar investment.
All that could change if oil prices rise enough.
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This article originally appeared in The Daily Caller
Read the law on administration of the U.S. outer continental shelf at CFACT.org.
This is ridiculous. An amendment to the law would probably need one sentence.
WELL BEING NOT LEGIT, WITH A FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE. THAT DOESN’T MAKE HIM AMERICAN. SO ALL HIS RULING IS NOT REAL.!!
Birther! Drink!
Best,
D
Go soak your head, you dchbg.
Don’t have a little sads because I called a keyword in our Derpnialist Drinking Game! Turn that frown upside down, lad!
Best,
D
The child speaks. You uneducated dummy.
We shall soon find out if President elect Donald J.Trump decides to pursue the truth; regarding Obama’s birth certificate. When then upon Donald J. Trump’s taking office request the FBI to investigate Sheriff Joe ArPials Stated fact finding information as proof the birth certificate in question is & was indeed a forgery. If proven true ? Not a single law, not a single treaty, not a single act preformed by Obama is lawful or constitutional. Then each an every act,action, commutation, pardon shall be void,removed from the books. Followed by arrest, prosecutions convictions, sentencing for everyone involved. What a way to completely eliminate, erase Obama from the records of the Presidency. Further fulfilling the prophetesses in becoming revelations revealed of the demise & destruction of the Demo-rat party.