Green groups sue over Trump moves to expand offshore drilling
Conservation groups filed two legal challenges Wednesday to the Trump administration’s moves to shrink areas protected from offshore oil and gas development.
In the first lawsuit, a coalition of local and national groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and the Northern Alaska Environmental Center sued over Trump’s attempt to rescind Biden-era protections of 265 million acres of federal waters. Trump signed an order withdrawing the protections within his first hours in office.
In his first term, Trump took similar action against Obama-era protections, but a federal judge ruled that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act only authorizes presidents to block drilling in the affected areas rather than revoke previous presidents’ protections.
A second lawsuit seeks to restore protections against drilling the Arctic, filed by many of the same groups, with Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council representing them. The complaint specifically seeks to reinstate a 2021 decision affirming protections from nearly 130 million acres in the Arctic and Atlantic.
“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,” Earthjustice managing attorney for oceans Steve Mashuda said in a statement. “Trump is illegally trying to take away protections vital to coastal communities that rely on clean, healthy oceans for safe living conditions, thriving economies, and stable ecosystems.”
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to implement a “drill baby drill” energy policy and has spent his first weeks in office prioritizing new fossil fuel development and rolling back both Biden-era environmental protections and incentives for the renewable energy industry. His interior secretary, Doug Burgum, has acknowledged the threat of climate change but has expressed confidence that it can coexist with new oil and gas development through largely unproven carbon capture technology.
The Hill has reached out to the Energy Department for comment.
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