January 7, 2025--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In a series of four memoranda issued Monday by the White House, President Joe Biden instructed the Department of the Interior (DOI) to remove more than 625 million acres of federal offshore waters from oil and gas leasing. The affected waters are along the entire East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska. The affected off-limits zone is equal to about one-quarter of the land area of the U.S.