President Obama plans to take the unprecedented step as soon as Tuesday to ban all drilling in the Arctic seas after months of pressure by environmental groups to do so before President-elect Trump is sworn into office next month.
The Obama administration released a five-year drilling plan last month that withholds federal drilling leases in the Arctic, but many environmental groups said that doesn’t go far enough and want the president to take the executive action of instituting a ban in the icy north.
Obama also is planning to impose a permanent ban on offshore drilling off the Atlantic coast, which doesn’t have drilling currently. The industry and states have been pressuring the government to open up the coast for years. Obama’s proposed five-year drilling plan had included some offshore drilling in the Atlantic, but it was removed from the final plan.
The oil industry has begun putting pressure on Trump to scrap the five-year drilling plan. But environmentalists know that the more actions the Obama administration takes on the way out to make it harder on drillers, the tougher time Trump will have undoing the regulations, plans and bans.
