US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along most of America’s coastline, weeks before Donald Trump takes office.
During his campaign, Trump pledged to “unleash” domestic fossil fuel production in a bid to lower gas costs, despite the US already seeing record high extraction rates.
The ban announced by Biden covers the entire Atlantic coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Pacific coast off California, Oregon and Washington, and a section of the Bering Sea off Alaska.
It is the latest in a string of last-minute climate policy actions by the Biden administration ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
Biden said in a statement: “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs.
“It is not worth the risks.”
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