Legal Challenges Mount Against Trump Administration’s Offshore Oil Drilling Plans

Feb 19 (Reuters) – Environmental groups on Wednesday moved in court to block President Donald Trump’s administration from allowing offshore oil drilling along broad swaths of U.S. coastline, in what appeared to be the first legal challenges to the Republicans’ efforts to boost fossil fuel production.

A new lawsuit seeks to block Trump from revoking former President Joe Biden’s ban on offshore drilling in certain coastal areas, while a new filing in a case from the first Trump administration seeks to reinstate prohibitions against drilling in 128 million acres of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

Biden banned new offshore oil and gas development along most U.S. coastlines ahead of Trump taking office, though the move was considered mostly symbolic because it did not impact areas where drilling was already underway and mainly covered zones lacking important development prospects.

Trump sought to undo that move as part of a flurry of executive orders within hours of his inauguration aimed at boosting the nation’s already record-high oil and gas production and unwinding Biden’s climate agenda.

The Wednesday legal challenges, filed in Alaska federal court, are the first legal challenges to Trump’s environmental policies, according to the groups that filed them.

“We defeated Trump the first time he tried to roll back protections and sacrifice more of our waters to the oil industry. We’re bringing this abuse of the law to the courts again,” Steve Mashuda of the advocacy group Earthjustice said in a statement.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

In the new lawsuit, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and other groups allege Trump has no authority to undo Biden’s permanent protections against drilling in parts of the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, which Trump recently renamed to the Gulf of America.

The groups say drilling in those areas would have “significant, wide-ranging adverse impacts” on endangered species, sensitive ecosystems and local tribes.

Also on Wednesday, a group led by the League of Conservation Voters made a new filing in a dormant case from the first Trump administration concerning former President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from future oil leasing, which Trump sought to undo.

Litigation over Trump’s removal of those protections was dismissed after Biden reinstated the protections, but Trump has moved in his second term to undo them again.

“The areas President Obama withdrew from leasing in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans are thus again threatened by offshore oil and gas activities,” the groups said in the lawsuit, asking a judge to enforce a prior court order finding Trump’s actions in his first term were illegal.

The Trump administration faces more than 70 lawsuits challenging its efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and end birthright citizenship, roll back legal protections for transgender people and dramatically shrink the federal government with his top adviser Elon Musk.