The decision comes on the grounds that drilling in those areas is not worth the risk and is not necessary to meet the country’s energy needs.

President Joe Biden intends to indefinitely ban oil and gas development in more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters, warning that drilling there is “not worth the risk” and “not necessary” to meet the country’s energy needs.

The move is among two presidential memoranda being issued Monday, aiming to bolster his legacy on environmental conservation and combating climate change just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

But unlike other actions Biden has taken to restrict fossil fuel development, Trump may have a harder time undoing this move because it is based on a 72-year-old provision of federal law that gives presidents the power to withdraw U.S. territorial waters from oil and gas leasing arrangements, without explicit authorization to revoke them.

Biden’s order would block future oil and gas exploration leases along the U.S. East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and a portion of the northern Bering Sea, an area rich in seabirds, aquatic mammals, fish, and other wildlife that Native peoples have relied on for thousands of years. The measure does not affect existing offshore energy leases, and it would not prevent further sales of exploration rights in Alaska’s gas-rich Cook Inlet or the central and western Gulf of Mexico, which together account for 14 percent of U.S. oil and gas production.