This week President Joe Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit oil and gas drilling in most of America’s offshore areas, in perpetuity—or so he thinks. President-elect Donald Trump called the order “ridiculous” and pledged to reverse it immediately.
That’s precisely what Trump should do, but it won’t be easy. In 2019, a federal judge in Alaska tossed out Trump’s revocation of a similar (though far more modest) Obama-era withdrawal, holding that Trump had exceeded his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. While that decision lost most of its relevance when Biden’s election mooted the appeal, any similar effort by Trump will be challenged on the same legal theory.
Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act provides: “The President of the United States may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition…
