Obama blocks all future oil drilling in Arctic and Atlantic waters

After giving Shell the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic, last year, Obama has made a striking decision to use his executive power to block future oil drills in the region.

Citing a provision in a 1953 law governing offshore leases, he has issued a law that would block any future attempts at oil drilling in the waters off the Arctic and Atlantic coasts of the U.S.

It has a journey to take through the courts and could be changed by Congress, but the move is one that shows he is serious about preventing more off-shore drilling in the global waterways.

The law allows a president to withdraw any currently unleased lands in the Outer Continental Shelf from future lease sales.

Obama said he would designate “the bulk of our Arctic water and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing," iterating that "the prospects for drilling in the affected areas in the near future were already questionable.”

Questionable, because the areas, many of which are located in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic, as well as 31 canyon areas in the Atlantic, are already off limits to Canadian drilling companies in a 5-year moratorium.  The two countries are working together to create sustainable shipping lanes in the area.