By Ben Jealous
BlackPress of America
https://blackpressusa.com/
It may be winter, but when we think about our beaches, none of us wants to picture them covered in oil. That’s 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, it’s the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. No matter what disaster comes to mind, we can all agree: We must protect our waters and coastal communities. President Joe Biden not only agrees, he just took decisive action to prevent future disasters.
This week, in the final days of his administration, 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 the 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 climate legacy. It safeguards coastal communities and economies, marine wildlife and ecosystems from the threats of 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 clean energy transition that ends reliance on fossil fuels, strengthens our economy with family-sustaining jobs, and makes our air and water cleaner.
This 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 adds to an administration that has shown 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 U.S. Forest Service.
And it 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 affected, 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 U.S. coastline from oil and gas drilling. And bills that would ban offshore drilling have enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.
Despite claims from big oil and gas, this is a major win for all Americans, 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 affects 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 U.S. coastlines.
No matter what corporate polluters say, there will never be a safe way to extract fossil fuels from our waters. 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 established. The communities, species and ecosystems of this region continue to shoulder the environmental and health hazards brought on by 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 Biden as perhaps the biggest step that got us there.
In the meantime, it’s not too early to say: Thank you, President Biden. There are still some crucial remaining days to this president. Let’s encourage him 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.
