Obama Puts Offshore Drilling Out of Trump’s Reach
Going directly against the will of the American people, President Barack Obama made a last ditch power grab to try to render President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda ineffective before his administration has even begun.
According to Time, Obama will permanently ban offshore drilling in most of the U.S.- controlled Arctic and Atlantic Seaboard, a move that will limit Trump’s ability to deliver on his promise to boost the oil and gas industry by scrapping Obama-era environmental regulations.
The ban was being disguised as an effort to conserve marine species by protecting against oil spills, but if those species were in danger, one would imagine that Obama would have made this move years ago — not one month prior to Trump’s inauguration.
The way this is possible is because of a seldom-used provision of a 1953 law giving the president authority to indefinitely block oil and gas drilling in some waters controlled by the United States, according to The New York Times. Because the law has never been used this way before, Trump’s ability to overturn Obama’s unilateral action was in question.
However, with a Republican-dominated Congress, what may be able to be undone is the law itself — though that may take some time, time during which Trump’s hands might be tied.
The left predictably ate this move up, hailing Obama as a hero for environmentalism.
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