Trump's expansion plans for drilling in the Arctic were blocked in court

Arctic Ocean waters off the Alaskan coast.
(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

President Trump's executive order that overturned a ban on drilling for oil in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans was ruled "unlawful and invalid" by a federal judge in Alaska on Saturday.

Just weeks before leaving office, former President Barack Obama issued an executive order which prohibited drilling in certain areas in the two oceans. But Trump signed an executive order of his own to reopen those areas, which prompted ten environmental groups to file a lawsuit in the hopes of blocking Trump's reversal.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.