Biden Bans New Offshore Drilling in Arctic Bering Sea Ahead of Incoming Trump Administration
Shell’s platform Polar Pioneer in Dutch Harbod, Alaska. Shell is the only company that has done exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea in the US Arctic. (Photo: Judy Patrick/Creative commons)
Following new measures by President Biden much of the U.S. waters around the Bering Strait are now off limits to oil and gas exploration. The ban will likely prove difficult to reverse though upcoming President Trump promised to “unban” it on day one.
Less than two weeks before leaving office President Biden announced sweeping measures to ban offshore drilling along coastal waters in the Bering Sea of northern Alaska as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts and the Gulf of Mexico.
“In Alaska, dozens of Tribes have fought to protect the Northern Bering Sea, a vital ocean ecosystem that supports their traditional ways of life,” President Biden elaborated in a statement.
The administration cites support by 400 municipalities and 2,300 state, local and tribal officials who support the measures to protect these coastal areas from future drilling. Notably support is frequently bipartisan including a number of Republican governors in coastal states.
“In Alaska, the new Northern Bering Sea protections are consistent with a long-standing request from more than 70 coastal Tribes,” the administration highlights.
Alaska statewide officials, including Representative Begich and Senators Murkowski and Sullivan, all members of the Republican Party, were critical of the ban.
The area is not currently home to existing oil and gas leases.
However, their comments lambasting Biden’s “anti-oil” stance largely rang hollow; U.S. oil and gas production expanded rapidly during his administration.
The Alaska portion of the ban will protect 44 million acres of the Northern Bering Sea along the state’s far northwest coast. The area is not currently home to existing oil and gas leases.
Obama took first steps
Initial steps to protect those waters were taken by President Obama in 2016 with the creation of the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area, home to the world’s largest marine mammal migration route, including beluga and bowhead whales, seals and walruses.
Increasing shipping traffic across the narrow Bering Strait overlaps with whale migration patterns.
The ban also includes large sections of coastal waters on the U.S. East and West Coast as well as the Gulf of Mexico totaling 253 million hectares, around six times the size of Norway.
Map showing previously protected areas in the Bering Sea and the new offshore lease ban in the northern section. (Source: White House/Department of Interior)
The “stickiness” of the Biden ban under the upcoming Trump administration is up for debate. It is unclear if the next president can undo the ban without going through the U.S. Congress.
With regard to the new Biden ban President Trump promised to immediately “unban” it. An attempt by Trump during his first presidency to reverse Obama’s creation of the Bering Sea protections in 2019 failed in an Alaska court.
President Trump has recently interjected himself into the Arctic discourse again asserting the U.S. should be buying Greenland, a repeat of similar comments in 2019.
And politically there may be little appetite in Washington DC to expand U.S. oil and gas production into sensitive areas, especially in the Arctic, at a time when the country is already producing fossil fuels at a record rate.
The U.S. became the world’s largest oil producer in 2017 and produced more oil than any country in history in 2023.
