Climate groups file lawsuits to block Trump’s offshore drilling plans

Two lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration by climate advocacy groups in the US this week.

They are the first legal challenges launched by green groups against the US President’s avalanche of environmental rollbacks.

Both lawsuits take aim at Trump’s attempts to “drill, baby, drill” and open up oceans to offshore oil and gas projects. These efforts by the new administration come despite the US currently producing more oil than any other nation in history.

The plaintiffs in the two lawsuits claim these moves to undo marine protections are illegal.

“We have seen the impact of offshore drilling on our vulnerable ocean waters, and what it does to the surrounding communities, marine life, and the health of the ecosystem,” says senior attorney Devorah Ancel at Sierra Cub, an American environmental organisation.

“When nearly 40 per cent of Americans live in coastal counties that rely on a healthy ocean to thrive, removing critical protections shows how little care Trump has for these communities.

“Trump tried this illegal move to undo protections during his first administration, and he failed. We will keep working to ensure he won’t be any more successful this time around.”

Rolling back a ban on oil and gas drilling in US waters

The first lawsuit challenges an executive order signed by Trump just hours into his second term. It revokes former President Biden’s protections for large areas of US coastal waters from future oil and gas leasing.

The legal challenge has been brought by a number of local and national organisations, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Oceana, and the Northern Alaska Environmental Center.

During his presidency, Biden protected millions of hectares of US waters – from Canada to the southern tip of Florida – from offshore fossil fuel drilling. It is these protections that Trump wanted to remove during his first day as President, which is part of a drive to increase the country’s oil and gas production.

“President Trump’s executive order would roll back millions of acres of ocean protection, jeopardising our coastal economies and the people who rely on healthy, thriving oceans,” says Oceana campaign director Joseph Gordon.

Nonprofit environmental law organisation Earthjustice is representing Oceana and many of the other climate advocacy groups involved in the case. It says that, while the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act allows Presidents to withdraw offshore areas from oil and gas leasing, it doesn’t authorise them to revoke the withdrawals of previous presidents.

“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,” says Earthjustice managing attorney for oceans, Steve Mashuda.

Opening up the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to drilling

The second related lawsuit was filed by many of the same groups and numerous Alaskan environmental organisations.

It aims to reinstate a 2021 federal court ruling that prevented the first Trump administration from undoing Obama-era protections for offshore areas in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

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“The Arctic Ocean has been protected from US drilling for nearly a decade, and those protections have been affirmed by the federal courts,” said Sierra Weaver, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups involved in this case.

“Though these coastlines have been protected, the administration is showing no restraint in seeking to hand off some of our most fragile and pristine landscapes for the oil industry’s profit.”

As part of his current efforts to remove marine protections, Trump has revived his attempts to once again open up the entire Arctic Ocean to drilling.

“We shouldn’t have to file our suit again because President Trump already lost the last time he tried this,” says Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, which led a coalition of groups in a successful challenge of this order during the first Trump administration.

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“We are signalling to Congress, the President, and the people of this country our commitment to defending already-protected coastal communities and waters from risky and dirty offshore drilling.”