On February 19, 2025, Sierra Club and its allies filed the first two environmental legal challenges against the Trump administration, both challenging a Secretary Order issued by Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. Secretary’s Order No. 3420 attempts to greenlight oil and gas development in vast offshore areas that had already been protected by the Biden and Obama administrations under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Under that statute, presidents can protect areas from oil and gas drilling activities, but cannot undo previous presidents’ protections–that is a power exclusively reserved for Congress.
Our first lawsuit challenges the Order’s attempt to undo President Biden’s protection of 625 million acres in ecologically sensitive areas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, as well as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico from oil and gas leasing and drilling activities. Our lawsuit asserts that the Trump administration’s revocation of these protections is overstepping the presidential powers outlined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, attempting to exert a power exclusively reserved for Congress.
In addition, the Order attempts to revoke earlier offshore protections by President Obama, which prohibited leasing and drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic not encompassed in the recent Biden protections. The first Trump administration already tried to revoke these protections, which failed when we filed a successful lawsuit against their actions. Our second court filing asks the same Alaska court where the original ruling was made to reinstate its previous favorable ruling. In that earlier ruling, the court held that Trump’s revocation was beyond the powers authorized by Congress under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, as we assert in the related case described above.
Sierra Club is represented by Senior ELP Attorney, Devorah Ancel.