I want you to imagine, just for a minute, that you’re the President of the United States. You’ve served for two terms and in just under a month you’re handing the reins over to somebody else. They’re not exactly the person you would have chosen to replace you…in fact they’re worse than evil hooded Kermit. You’ve got a few days to tie up loose ends, say your goodbyes and do a few last minute things. How do you use them?
If you’re Barack Obama you do the ultimate mic drop, flipping the bird to your haters and saying so long suckerssss’ to the people who’ve been trying to make it difficult for you to do good work for the last eight years.
Yesterday President Obama announced a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the arctic. Of course he bloody did.
In doing this Obama has cemented his environmental legacy and made sure that it cannot be quickly or easily undone by America’s next President – who is of course, no other than the climate change sceptic scrooge Donald Trump who has sworn to roll back the Obama administration’s environmental policies.
Donald Trump has not only questioned the science of climate change, he has promised voters that he will tap into America’s fossil fuel reserves and threatened to do away with the Paris climate agreement. Trump has already hired several climate change deniers.
In an attempt to do what he can before Trump takes office, Obama used an obscure law, known as the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows him to act without having to go through Congress. He has put a permanent drilling ban in place on the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska’s coast. Basically, he’s banned it in most of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans which is being reported as an unprecedented presidential intervention. To put that in context, we’re talking about millions of acres of the ocean floor!
If Trump wants to undo this he will have to take it to a federal court, he can’t simply make a change when he steps into the Oval Office.
Just when you thought this story couldn’t get any better…Obama didn’t act alone. It was a joint move with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has also placed a ban on drilling in the Arctic which is subject to a review.
In a statement the White House saidthe decision had been made in order to protect ‘a strong sustainable and viable Arctic economy and ecosystem’. Their intention is to safeguard the needs of people in the area, protect wildlife and insure the area against oil spills.
Obama, please don’t go.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.