Biden bans new deepwater oil and gas development in US Atlantic and Pacific

President Joe Biden on Monday banned new offshore oil and gas drilling along most of the country's coastline. The decision was announced by the White House weeks before Donald Trump takes office.

The ban covers the entire Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico coast, the Pacific coasts off California, Oregon and Washington as well as a portion of the Bering Sea off Alaska, a White House statement said.

"In protecting more than 625 million acres of the U.S. ocean from offshore drilling, President Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential," the White House said on its official website.

This is an attempt by Biden to defend his radical climate agenda.

"The withdrawals advance two important Biden-Harris Administration priorities: honoring and protecting areas of significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples as well as States and other stakeholders; and helping to ensure our oceans and coasts are resilient to the threats of climate change and nature loss," the statement detailed.

Meanwhile, recalls Bloomberg, some of the areas Biden is protecting were already removed from oil and gas leases by Trump during the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign.

For its part, President Trump's team criticized Biden's decision and argued that it is a political vendetta by Biden against Americans.

"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. Joe Biden clearly wants high gas prices to be his legacy," Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican, said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg.