Leavitt: Biden Drill Block 'Disgraceful,' 'Political Revenge'

President Joe Biden's vowed peaceful transition of power comes replete with obstacles for President-elect Donald Trump's agenda on energy independence, incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt decried.

Biden signed an executive order Monday morning to ban new offshore oil and gas development along most U.S. coastlines, a decision that Trump might find difficult to reverse.

"This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices," Leavitt wrote in a statement. "Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill."

Biden will use his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to block drilling in all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the White House said Monday. The ban will affect 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of ocean.

"My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation's energy needs," Biden said in a statement. "It is not worth the risks."

The announcement comes as Trump has pledged to reverse Biden's conservation and climate change policies when he takes office later this month.

An oil and gas industry trade group said the decision would harm American energy security and should be reversed by Congress.

"We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing," American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers said in a statement.

Information from Reuters was used to compile this report.

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