Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced today that she is leading a multi-State coalition suing President Joe Biden’s illegal ban on new offshore drilling.

Back on January 6, just weeks after his party lost the 2024 presidential election—and two weeks before Inauguration Day in 2025—President Biden tried once again to accomplish much of what the Western District of Louisiana barred three years ago. This time, President Biden issued two memoranda purporting to “withdraw from disposition by oil or natural gas leasing” more than half a billion acres of offshore waters from Alaska to the Gulf Coast that fall under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). This, notwithstanding that OCSLA was created to facilitate the development of the Shelf.

Our complaint states that President Biden had no authority to issue the Memos for these reasons:

• Both the Western District and the Supreme Court have unequivocally stated that “Congress has the sole authority under the Property Clause to regulate property.”

• It is equally well-established that Congress “may not transfer to another branch ‘powers which are strictly and exclusively legislative’” without articulating a standard to guide the other branch’s discretion. In OCSLA, Congress did not even try to articulate such a standard—instead, giving the President carte blanche to withdraw land from oil and gas leasing. That is unconstitutional.

• The Constitution’s Property Clause gives Congress the power only to enact “needful” rules and regulations on public lands—and there is no basis in OCSLA suggesting Congress deemed it necessary to give the President sweeping authority to gut OCSLA’s promise of oil and gas leasing.

• The purported withdrawal violates OCSLA, particularly as interpreted under the major questions doctrine. Removing more than half a billion acres from oil and gas leasing is major by any measure. That doing so functionally overrides OCSLA’s detailed leasing scheme, moreover, reinforces that there is no sufficiently clear congressional statement giving President Biden the sweeping authority that no other President has claimed to have.

“Promises made, promise kept! I promised - and today I filed - a federal lawsuit challenging Joe Biden’s unlawful drilling ban. Two weeks before Inauguration Day, Biden purported to ban virtually all oil and gas leasing along the Lower 48 States’ coastline and a significant portion along Alaska’s coastline. The ban is blatantly illegal! If upheld, it would dramatically harm our economy and livelihood. I will always defend Louisiana and American energy,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill.

We are asking the court to declare unlawful—and enjoin the enforcement of—President Biden’s Withdrawal Memos. Congress cannot lawfully delegate unbounded legislative power to the President.

Along with Attorney General Murrill, attorneys general from Alaska, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama joined our suit.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court Western District of Louisiana Lake Charles Division.

Read our lawsuit here.