(WCIV) — President Joe Biden issued a memorandum Monday withdrawing future considerations for oil and gas leasing across a vast swathe of offshore US coastline, including the entire South Carolina coast. The now-protected areas covering over 625-million acres of coastline include the entire US Pacific and Eastern Atlantic coasts, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and what’s left of the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area off the Alaskan shore. The memo was authorized under section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which was created in 1953 and gave power to the Department of the Interior to grant oil and gas leases to qualified bidders. The Department of the Interior said Biden’s memo represents the largest presidential withdrawal in US history under the OCS Lands Act and protects coastal communities, marine ecosystems, and local economies from oil spills and other impacts of offshore drilling. Impacts in South Carolina Christopher DeScherer, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s South Carolina office based in Charleston, said the withdrawal was “great news” for South Carolina. His office litigates environmental and conservational cases across the Lowcountry as part of the greater Virginia-based SELC. “If we had offshore drilling off our coast, even a single oil spill from a rig or a tanker, or even from the pipelines that would be necessary for this industry, [it] would devastate healthy waters and our beaches, which are critical for our coastal economies,” said DeScherer. “Our coastal economy here in terms of revenue from tourist and visitors, and also commercial and recreational fisheries in South Carolina, there would be too much to lose to risk all that with offshore drilling.” The Surfrider Foundation, an environmental non-profit that seeks to protect oceans and beaches through local chapter-based operations and initiatives across the country, celebrated a “monumental victory for our coasts and communities” through Biden’s 12(a) withdrawal. Pete Stauffer, Surfrider’s Ocean Protection Manager, echoed DeScherer’s economic analysis. “Offshore drilling is an existential threat to coastal recreation and tourism, which is enjoyed by millions of Americans and generates billions of dollars in economic revenue every year,” Stauffer said. “The economic reality is that coastal tourism and recreation generate $160 billion annually and support 2.5 million American jobs – far outweighing offshore oil and gas production, which contributes $96 billion and only 12,000 jobs nationally.” DeScherer said South Carolina does not possess the crucial infrastructure needed to support offshore drilling in the first place, like pipelines and refineries. He branded the on-shore impact of building that infrastructure as seeming “completely unrealistic and incompatible with coastal South Carolina,” though he stressed it is still important the entire Eastern Atlantic coast was included in the withdrawal. “To say once and for all like, ‘this is this is not how we’re going to use the Atlantic Ocean,’ I think it’s a major announcement,” DeScherer said. “It’s really great news for South Carolina but also for the East Coast.” SELC senior attorney Megan Huynh said that 12(a) withdrawals protecting the outer continental shelf lands of the US are powerful tools for conservation as they are difficult for lawmakers to appeal. “Federal courts have previously said that these protections cannot be revoked by presidential action and that it takes an act of Congress to undo them,” Huynh said. “During his first term, President Trump tried to undo President Obama’s 12(a) withdrawal of about 120,000,000 acres in portions of the Arctic and Atlantic and that was challenged by conservation groups and a federal District Court in Alaska held that it was beyond the president’s power and violated the constitution to do so.” Drill, baby, drill? The White House issued the memo on the same day as the 2025 Counting and Certification of Electoral Votes in Washington, D.C., certifying President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Campaigning prior to the 2024 election, Trump was an ardent supporter of the oil and gas industries while he decried offshore wind energy production and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s climate initiatives. The Economic Times reported that Trump planned to approve new drilling and pipelines “starting on Day 1” after he hit the trail using “drill, baby, drill!” as a regular slogan. In a rapid response email sent Monday, Team Trump criticized Biden’s decision coming “right after voters gave President Trump a popular vote mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices.” Trump himself called the withdrawal “ridiculous” in an appearance on a conservative radio show Monday, promising to undo the action on day one. “I’ll unban it immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately,” Trump told Hewitt. “What’s he doing? Why is he doing it?” The President-elect went on to say that he plans to expand oil and gas drilling as the US has oil and gas “at a level nobody else has.” “It’s really our greatest economic asset,” Trump said. “And we’re not going to let that happen to our country. We’re going to be great again.” Trump’s aforementioned 2017 executive order would have caused significant expansion of the US oil and gas industries’ offshore drilling capabilities before it was struck down by the US District Court for the District of Alaska in 2019. Responding in 2020, Trump’s White House issued a 10-year moratorium on offshore drilling along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Huynh, who also acts as the SLEC’s Wetlands and Coasts Program Leader, explained Biden’s memo broadens Trump’s moratorium more than it nullifies it. “That moratorium was done under this same power, under the [OCS Lands Act],” said Huynh. “But that began in 2022 and ran through 2032, so what this does is builds on that moratorium and makes sure that these waters are going to be permanently protected moving forward.” Trump’s 2020 moratorium was met withpraise from local lawmakers but was scrutinized over his apparent flip-flopping on his position after the 2017 executive order. US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) long pushed for increased domestic drilling and oil production, though he praised Trump’s 2020 moratorium and claimed to have worked extensively with the President to get South Carolina included. His office did not immediately respond for comment on Biden’s withdrawal. Gov. Henry McMaster called Trump’s moratorium “good news” at the time. “South Carolina is blessed with the most beautiful and pristine beaches, sea islands, and marshes in the nation,” the governor said in 2020. “Seismic testing and offshore drilling threatens their health and jeopardizes the future of our state’s $24 billion tourism industry. Today’s announcement is good news, but we must remain vigilant in the conservation and preservation of our coastline.” The governor’s office was approached for comment on Biden’s withdrawal and has yet to provide a response. Categories: News, Politics, State Tags: President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump