Outgoing President Barack Obama is about to invoke a 1953 law in a bid to protect the Arctic and Atlantic shelf of the United States from the claws of the oil and gas industry, but below the surface it may just be theoretical. The Outer Continental Shelf Land Act, and more specifically its provision 12(a), has only been invoked a few times since the passing of the legislation and has always, until now, concerned discrete areas. This time will be the first when the provision is invoked to protect such large regions of the country’s shelf and it’s looking like the invocation will be more of a symbolic gesture to the environmentalist lobby than anything of practical significance going forward. On the face of it, Obama’s move would interfere with President-elect Donald Trump’s energy policy priorities, where drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic and Atlantic shelf features […]