President Biden and President-elect Trump sat side-by-side in the Oval Office after the election exchanging pleasantries in front of the cameras, both promising “a smooth transition.”
Biden vowed to “do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated,” insisting the president-elect would get “what you need.” Trump replied, “I very much appreciate that,” agreeing with the president that the coming transfer of power would be “as smooth as it can get.”
That era of good feeling, if it hadn’t already, ended two weeks from inauguration day. “They say we’re going to have a smooth transition,” Trump said Tuesday during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, “all they do is talk. It’s all talk.” The incoming president feels sabotaged by the outgoing president on at least two fronts: A sudden and sweeping offshore drilling ban and his imminent sentencing in his New York hush money trial.
Biden announced earlier this week that he would protect 625 million acres of ocean from offshore oil and gas drilling along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea. An environmentalist, he has conserved more land and waters than any other president in history and condemned the “false choice” of choosing “between protecting the environment and growing our economy” when announcing the ban under a provision of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
Predictably, Trump balked. “It is like the whole ocean,” he said while reflecting on the vast acreage and complaining that his predecessor had just “destroyed the economic viability of drilling in the ocean.”
“I’m going to have it revoked on day one,” he continued before indicating that such a move would likely incur legal challenges. And he should know. Trump tried to reverse former President Barack Obama’s ban on drilling in Arctic and Atlantic waters through executive action, only to be blocked by a federal court in 2019. The judge ruled that reversing a ban would require congressional action.
Democratic administrations tend to be more conservation-minded, while Republican ones are more permissive of oil and gas production. This is nothing. During the campaign, Trump often bragged about how the United States became a net exporter of fossil fuels during his tenure, boasting about the vast reserves of “liquid gold under our feet,” a supply far greater “than any other country.” And while the U.S., in fact, hit record highs of domestic oil production in the last four years, Biden hastened and cheered the transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy.
The latest conservation effort is more than just energy policy in the eyes of Trump. It is instead a direct attempt to hamstring his strategy to bring down inflation before that plan can even start. During remarks at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump vowed that increased drilling would bring down gas prices and reduce manufacturing inputs, thus “driving down inflation.” At Mar-a-Lago, an optimistic president-elect pegged the value of offshore drilling at $50 trillion, complaining that Biden “has thrown it away.”
Of course, there is no love lost between Trump and Biden. The Republican calls his counterpart “the worst president in history.” The Democrat regularly called his predecessor “a threat to democracy.”
They did the same thing to him with covid..dems backed up him up against a wall. Stole more money via the covid dem/china scam….Then stole the election, continued to run the economy into the ground and will leave a legacy pile of excrement. Just thank God it wasn’t Hillary trump set back there plan years..