Entrenching the Obama Presidency

A federal judge rules that Trump can’t revoke Obama’s oil drilling ban.

No branch of government can bind its successors. Yet a federal judge last week divined an exception to this constitutional axiom by enshrining a Barack Obama order walling off 128 million acres of the Arctic and eastern seaboard from oil and gas production. Behold how liberals are attempting to entrench the Obama Presidency.

In December 2016 Mr. Obama invoked the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to “indefinitely” ban drilling in federal waters off the Alaska and Atlantic coasts. The law’s purpose was to encourage more resource production by delegating to the President power to lease coastal land and “from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.”

Until now it’s been understood that Presidents cannot permanently withdraw land from production. George H.W. Bush barred drilling off the Pacific Coast, North Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico through 1998. Bill Clinton extended the moratorium through 2008, but this was partly rescinded by George W. Bush.

Enter Mr. Obama, who declared that the Arctic and Atlantic offshore areas, while too expensive to develop when oil was fetching $40 a barrel, needed to be permanently off limits “to move decisively away from fossil fuels.” Shortly before leaving office, his Interior Department also tried to tie these lands in a double knot by excluding them from its five-year leasing plan.

President Trump rescinded the Obama oil blockade in April 2017, but 10 environmental groups sued. They argue that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act does not expressly allow a President to revoke a prior land withdrawal without Congressional approval. Taken to its logical extent this would mean a President can’t undo his own actions.

Federal Judge Sharon Gleason last week agreed with the plaintiffs in an outlandish opinion that ignores the law and constitutional principles.

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