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WASHINGTON — In a major legal blow to President Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful.

The decision, by Judge Sharon L. Gleason of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, concluded late Friday that President Barack Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawal from drilling of about 120 million acres of Arctic Ocean and about 3.8 million acres in the Atlantic “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.” She wrote that an April 2017 executive order by Mr. Trump revoking the drilling ban “is unlawful, as it exceeded the president’s authority.”

The decision, which is expected to be appealed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, immediately reinstates the drilling ban on most of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, a pristine region home to endangered species including polar bears and bowhead whales where oil companies have long sought to drill. Along the Atlantic coast, it blocks drilling around a series of coral canyons that run from Norfolk, Va., to the Canadian border which are home to unique deepwater corals and rare fish species.

In addition, Friday’s ruling by the judge, an Obama appointee, has broader implications for Mr. Trump’s effort to push drilling across the American coastline and on public lands.</s>Image copyright AFP Image caption During the 2016 campaign, Mr Trump promised to reverse his predecessor's environmental protection policies

Donald Trump's reversal of an Obama-era environmental protection was "unlawful", a judge has ruled.

During his presidency, Barack Obama brought in a ban on offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic.

Mr Trump attempted to overturn this with an executive order in 2017, promising to allow oil and gas companies back into protected regions.

District Court Judge Sharon Gleason has now ruled that the president violated a federal environmental law.

What was 'unlawful' about what Trump did?

The court heard that Mr Trump fell foul of the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Under that law, presidents are allowed to withdraw areas from the national oil and gas leasing programme, which allows companies to drill in specified areas.

Mr Obama had used this law to protect almost 500,000sq km of the outer continental shelf - including the Arctic's Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea, and a large area of the Atlantic Ocean on the country's east coast.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Oil wells and vehicle-charging stations in Deadhorse Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, on Beaufort Sea, where drilling was banned

However, presidents do not have the power to add areas back to the leasing programme - only Congress does.

Judge Gleason told the court that therefore the ban on drilling "will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress".

The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Alaskan indigenous and environmental groups.

Athan Manuel, from a group called The Sierra Club, told US broadcaster CBS that the ruling was "great news for the Arctic Ocean, great news for the planet, great news for the fight against climate change".

'Unleash American energy'

Getting rid of Mr Obama's environmental protections had been one of Mr Trump's promises to voters while on the campaign trail ahead of the 2016 election.

He signed the executive order allowing oil and gas giants access to the protected areas in April 2017, just a few months after his January inauguration.

At the time, Mr Trump told reporters that he wanted to "unleash American energy". Environmental groups immediately announced that they would challenge the move.

Mr Trump had also attempted to overturn another environmental ban brought in by his predecessor, which would have allowed his administration to build a road through sensitive wetlands in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

However, that move has also now been blocked by Judge Gleason.

Mr Obama enacted that ban after a four-year impact study into the area, which found that the road would cause unjustifiable harm.

Judge Gleason told the court that Mr Trump's former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke then broke the law when he reversed the policy without addressing the findings of this study.</s>In a major legal blow to President Donald Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful.

The decision, by Judge Sharon L. Gleason of U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, concluded late Friday that President Barack Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawal from drilling of about 120 million acres of Arctic Ocean and about 3.8 million acres in the Atlantic “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.” She wrote that an April 2017 executive order by Trump revoking the drilling ban “is unlawful, as it exceeded the president’s authority.”

The decision, which is expected to be appealed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, immediately reinstates the drilling ban on most of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, a pristine region where oil companies have long sought to drill. Along the Atlantic coast, it blocks drilling around a series of coral canyons that run from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Canadian border.

Most immediately, the decision will force the Interior Department to withdraw the waters of the Arctic Ocean from its forthcoming plan detailing where the federal government intends to lease federal waters to oil companies for offshore drilling. A draft of that plan published last year called for drilling off the entire U.S. coastline.

Although Friday’s court decision relates specifically to a law on offshore drilling, it could also hamstring Trump’s efforts to erase or reduce the creation of large protected areas of public lands by previous presidents.

“The statutes and the Supreme Court have been silent on the authority of a president to modify or reduce a predecessor’s protections of these public lands, waters and monuments,” said Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. “But these decisions are showing that if a president wants to reverse a predecessor’s environmental policy, they have to give a cogent reason why.”

Parenteau predicted that the case was likely to reach the Supreme Court, though probably not for several years.</s>Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter.

WASHINGTON — In a major legal blow to President Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean was unlawful.

The decision, by Judge Sharon L. Gleason of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, concluded late Friday that President Barack Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawal of about 120 million acres of Arctic Ocean from drilling “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.” She wrote that an April 2017 executive order by Mr. Trump revoking the drilling ban “is unlawful, as it exceeded the president’s authority.”

The decision, which is expected to be appealed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, immediately reinstates the drilling ban on most of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, a pristine region home to endangered species including polar bears and bowhead whales where oil companies have long sought to drill. It also has broader implications for Mr. Trump’s effort to push drilling across the American coastline and on public lands.

Specifically, the Arctic Ocean drilling case could give legal ammunition to opponents of Mr. Trump’s efforts to roll back protections for two million acres of national monuments created by Mr. Obama and President Bill Clinton .</s>A federal judge in Alaska has ruled an executive order by President Donald Trump allowing offshore oil drilling of tens of millions of acres in the Arctic Ocean is “unlawful and invalid.”

The ruling on Friday from US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason means a drilling ban for much of the Arctic Ocean off of Alaska will go back into effect.

On April 28, 2017, Trump issued an executive order reversing three memoranda and one executive order in 2015 and 2016 by then President Barack Obama withdrawing about 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean from oil leasing. The Obama order also prevented drilling in certain parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

That action by the Obama Administration prompted strong criticism from some Alaska politicians and oil companies that wanted to drill there.

Ten environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, filed suit to block Trump’s executive order. Defending the order were the Trump administration, the American Petroleum Institute and the state of Alaska.

Gleason ruled Friday that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act only allows a president to withdraw lands from consideration by the Interior Department for leasing — not to revoke a prior withdrawal. She ruled Congress is the only institution that can reverse a president’s decision with regard to this matter, saying Trump’s executive order “is unlawful, as it exceeded the President’s authority.”

“The wording of President Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawals indicates that he intended them to extend indefinitely, and therefore be revocable only by an act of Congress,” Gleason said.

Gleason added the withdrawals in 2015 and 2016 “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.”

League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski touted the environmentalist win in a statement marking the latest court ruling against a Trump administration environmental move.

“This victory shows that no one, not even Trump, is above the law,” Karpinski said in a statement. “Offshore drilling and the associated threat of devastating oil spills puts coastal economies and ways of life at risk while worsening the consequences of climate change. President Trump wanted to erase all the environmental progress we’ve made, but we fought back and we won.”

The League of Conservation Voters also said the ruling would force the Trump administration to re-examine its five-year leasing program for the Outer Continental Shelf.

An appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is considered likely in the case.</s>Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter.

WASHINGTON — In a legal blow to President Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean was unlawful.

The decision, by Judge Sharon Gleason in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, concluded late Friday that President Barack Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawal of about 125 million acres of Arctic Ocean from drilling “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress.” She wrote that an April 2017 executive order by Mr. Trump revoking the drilling ban “is unlawful, as it exceeded the president’s authority.”

The decision, which is expected to be appealed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, immediately reinstates the drilling ban on most of the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, where oil companies have long sought to drill. It also has broader implications for Mr. Trump’s effort to push drilling across the American coastline and on public lands.

And it adds to a growing roster of legal losses for Mr. Trump’s effort to undo Mr. Obama’s environmental legacy. Experts in environmental law estimate that the Trump administration has now lost about 40 environmental cases in federal courts.</s>A federal judge on Friday delivered a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to expand offshore drilling, restoring bans in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean.

In Alaska, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason threw out President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order overturning Obama-era restrictions.

Federal law allows presidents to remove certain lands from development, Gleason said, but not reverse bans. Only an act of Congress can revoke the withdrawals, she said.

The environmental bans issued by former President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016 were aimed to protect polar bears, walruses, ice seals and Alaska Native villages that depend on the animals.

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The American Petroleum Institute, a defendant in the case, disagreed with the decision.

“In addition to bringing supplies of affordable energy to consumers for decades to come, developing our abundant offshore resources can provide billions in government revenue, create thousands of jobs and will also strengthen our national security,” it said in a statement.

Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice, said the judge's ruling will help safeguard oceans and wildlife from fossil fuel interests. The organization represented environmental groups that sued the Trump administration over the executive order.

Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Wood said the groups misinterpreted the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act at issue during a hearing before Gleason last year. He argued the act is meant to be flexible and not bind presidents to another's decisions.

Obama halted exploration in coastal areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Hanna Shoal in 2015. The following year, he withdrew most other potential Arctic Ocean lease areas — about 98 percent of the Arctic outer continental shelf.

To protect marine mammals, deep-water corals, valuable fish populations and migratory whales in the Atlantic, Obama banned exploration in 5,937 square miles of underwater canyon complexes.

The Trump administration's current proposal to expand offshore oil and gas drilling faces bipartisan, bicoastal opposition due to pollution concerns along coasts and beaches.</s>A federal judge in Alaska says President Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed a ban on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean.</s>A federal judge in Alaska late Friday declared President Trump’s order revoking a sweeping ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean illegal, putting 128 million acres of federal waters off limits to energy exploration.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason represented the third legal setback to Trump’s energy and environmental policies in a single week. On Friday the judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2012, also blocked a land swap the Interior Department arranged that would pave the way for road through wilderness in a major national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service illegally approved two gas drilling plans in western Colorado, on the grounds that officials did not adequately analyze their wildlife and climate impacts.

Trump’s rollbacks of Obama-era conservation policies have suffered nearly two dozen setbacks in federal court, largely on procedural grounds. While the administration is appealing many of these decisions, and holds an advantage if the cases reach the Supreme Court, the rulings have slowed the president’s drive to expand fossil fuel production in the United States.

Earlier this month, for example, a federal judge halted drilling on more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming. And Friday’s decision on offshore drilling could affect a five-year leasing plan the administration plans to issue this summer, as well as block the six offshore lease sales it proposed to schedule in the Arctic Ocean starting as early as this year.

“President Trump’s lawlessness is catching up with him,” Erik Grafe, the lead attorney from Earthjustice who argued to reinstate Obama’s leasing withdrawals in the Arctic and Atlantic, said in a statement Friday. “The judge’s ruling today shows that the president can not just trample on the constitution to do the bidding of his cronies in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our oceans, wildlife, and climate.”

The Interior Department could not be immediately reached for comment.

In her Friday ruling, Gleason wrote that the law in which Congress gave the president authority over offshore drilling — the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — expressly allows for leasing withdrawals but does not state that a subsequent president can revoke those withdrawals without congressional approval.

“As a result, the previous three withdrawals issued on January 27, 2015 and December 20, 2016 will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress,” she wrote.

In a separate decision earlier in the day, Gleason found that then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not provide sufficient justification for reversing the government’s stance on whether to allow a small, remote Alaska town to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

Residents of King Cove have argued for years that they need to bisect the refuge, which has been protected for decades and provides a critical rest stop for migratory waterfowl, to ease medical situations under rough weather. Opponents counter that the federal government has provided millions in funding to provide town residents with alternative forms of transport, and that a road would fragment critical habitat.

“Here, the Secretary’s failure to acknowledge the change in agency policy and his failure to provide a reasoned explanation for that change in policy are serious errors,” Gleason wrote.

The third adverse decision the administration received this week came in a ruling from U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock, a Ronald Reagan appointee. A coalition of environmental groups had challenged adjacent plans to drill a total of 171 wells in Colorado’s North Fork Valley, which provides key habitat for elk and mule deer.</s>In a Friday decision handed down in federal court, a judge halted President Donald Trump's plan to open Arctic waters for oil drilling. District of Alaska Judge Sharon L. Gleason ruled that the president's move to open up 120 million acres of Arctic Ocean and 3.8 million acres in the Atlantic was outside of his authority, according to The New York Times. The current ban on drilling in those areas, she wrote, “will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress," according to a copy of the decision available online.

In 2017, Trump issued an executive order that aimed to overturn an executive order issued by President Barack Obama just weeks before Trump took office, according to the Times. On Friday, Judge Gleason wrote in her decision that Trump's move to do so "is unlawful, as it exceeded the President’s authority."

"This is a great victory for the Arctic, its polar bears, other wildlife and communities. It’s absolutely the right outcome under the law and for the sake of our planet," Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Wall Street Journal. The Center for Biological Diversity was among the groups named as a plaintiff in the case, per the Journal.

In a statement released in December 2016, President Obama said his order was intended to help "preserve a healthy Arctic ecosystem and protect our fragile Arctic waters." In the same statement, he expressed concerns about a potential future oil spill and the devastating impact it could have on the ecosystem.

The drilling ban, announced in conjunction with Canadian preservation efforts, Obama said at the time, "reflect[s] the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited."

A Department of Interior plan published last year, per the Times, aimed to open virtually all of the U.S. coast up to drilling. As long as Friday's ruling stands, the newspaper noted, the department will likely have to alter its plans.

In announcing his efforts to undo the Obama-era environmental protections which prohibited oil drilling in April of 2017, President Trump said the ban "deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth," according to a transcript published by the White House.

"Renewed offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless good jobs, and make America more secure and far more energy independent," Trump said. "This action is another historic step toward future development and future — with a future — a real future."

Friday's decision is expected to face an appeal, according to the Times. One expert told the paper that the case could even reach the Supreme Court, though likely not for several years. In the meantime, per Friday's decision, offshore drilling remains banned in over 120 million acres of currently protected land.
Federal Judge Sharon L. Gleason for the District of Alaska rules that President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast exceeds presidential power because it requires congressional action.