A judge has determined that a coalition of environmental activists didn’t have standing to pursue a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s push for more offshore drilling, at least for now.
The decision handed the president, who simply had reversed Joe Biden’s executive order to ban energy production in those regions, a huge win.
A report from the Epoch Times explained at issue is exploration and energy production on “millions of acres of offshore waters.”
The decision came from Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason of the District of Alaska .
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s reopening of millions of acres of offshore waters to oil and gas drilling.
Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that a coalition of environmental advocacy groups lacked standing because they failed to show…
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) August 25, 2026
US judge dismisses legal challenge to Trump’s offshore drilling expansion https://t.co/rM388Mh9WU https://t.co/rM388Mh9WU
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 24, 2026
The judge found that the environmental activists failed to show that they faced imminent injury.
Biden, as part of his agenda to force Americans into dependency on unreliable or sporadic renewables, and those expensive electric cars, had ordered that large areas of federal waters in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans be off-limits.
Also included were the Gulf of America.
Following Trump’s decision to reverse Biden’s order, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum began a procedure that would offer several dozen potential offshore oil and gas lease sales, including areas off Alaska, in the Gulf of America, and off the California coast, the report said.
Gleason found while the environmental groups could not, at this point, show they were harmed.
The decision leaves open potential future court fights, and also did not address the question whether a president can reverse an order from a previous president.
