BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has praised a recent federal court ruling that said former President Joe Biden’s administration exceeded its authority by banning offshore drilling in large areas along the coast.
In his October 2 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge James Cain said the plan was illegal because it was meant to be permanent, adding similar moves by the Obama administration also were illegal.
Murrill
“I’m proud to have led this fight along with the energy industry and my fellow Republicans AGs to defend Louisiana and American Energy,” Murrill said. “Judge Cain correctly ruled that the Biden Administration’s moratorium on leasing was improper, and he’s reaffirmed that ruling now.”
In the ruling, Cain also said the federal Outer Continental Lands Act used by Biden and Obama to force the withdrawals “establishes that withdrawals must be subject to reversal or modification.”
“To the extent these were indeed supposed to overcome the power of subsequent executives to revoke or modify their withdrawals, they constituted a departure from the executive branch’s longstanding practice and exceed the authority,” Cain wrote.
Biden’s plan was to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska. He had ordered the ban to remain in effect “for a period of time without specific expiration.”
In the waning days of his term, Biden used the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act as justification for the order. Soon after he took office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order overturning Biden’s work.
But several states, led by Louisiana, challenged the Biden order in court. Alabama, Alaska, Georgia and Mississippi also signed the lawsuit as did the American Petroleum Institute and the Gulf Energy Alliance.
While other presidents had sought to protect offshore waters, Cain said in his order that only Biden and Obama sought to make the protections permanent.
