.jpg)
A week after the March for Science, and a day before hundreds of thousands of citizens will take to the streets in cities across the globe to participate in the People’s Climate March, President Trump signed an executive order reviewing the designation of marine sanctuaries over the past decade—including those by his predecessor, President Obama—and expanding offshore drilling for gas and oil—a process that can bring catastrophic harm to marine life and wreak devastating effects on fragile ecosystems. During his administration, Obama banned drilling in some parts of the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans, and created the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine monument, preserving roughly 130 miles of sea canyons and underwater mountains off the coast of New England. There was also his administration’s last-minute Hail Mary, employing the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to legally ban offshore drilling off large parts of the Atlantic coast and in the Arctic Ocean, citing critical protection for marine mammals, ecological resources, and native populations. As there’s no provision in the law that allows for successors to repeal the decision, this may prove tricky to undo, though Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters that “everything” is under review.
Earlier this week, Trump signed an executive order that directed Zinke to “review national monuments designated by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906, aiming to roll back the borders of protected lands and open them to drilling, mining and logging,” according to the New York Times. “It is clear that this ‘review’ is a thinly veiled attempt to appease special interests and sell off our national parks, public lands, oceans, and cultural heritage to the highest bidder,” Christy Goldfuss, the vice president of energy and environment policy at the liberal Center for American Progress told the Times.
For his part, Zinke (who identified himself as a land-loving hunter and fisherman and “a Teddy Roosevelt guy”) told reporters last night that Trump’s latest executive order “will cement our nation’s position as a global energy leader.” That remains to be seen: The price of oil is relatively low, offshore drilling can be an expensive undertaking, and there are plenty of legal hurdles between a flick of the pen and job creation—much as Trump, eager to meet his own promises of gainful progress in his first 100 days, may wish it weren’t so. Along the Atlantic coasts, more than 100 cities and towns have passed resolutions against offshore drilling, citing fears of the certainty of another devastating oil spill like that of 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. Jason Bordoff, the director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former Obama administration energy and environment adviser, told the Washington Post that while the Trump administration can “rescind the former president’s efforts to end exploration,” that process would involve at least two years of revamping the government’s long-term drilling plans.
“The question, then, is, does anybody show up, and does anybody want these [leases]?” Bordoff said. “It depends quite a bit on what the oil market looks like in two years.” What is certain, however, is that tomorrow’s Climate March just got a whole lot more interesting.
