US to auction crude oil, gas in Gulf
Climate goals rely on fossil fuel cuts
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday will auction vast oil and gas reserves, estimated to hold up to 1.1. billion barrels of crude, in the Gulf of Mexico, the first such sale under President Joe Biden and a harbinger of the challenges he faces to reach climate goals that rely on deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions.
The livestreamed sale invited energy companies to bid on drilling leases across some 136,000 square miles — about twice the area of Florida.
It will take years to before companies start pumping crude. That means they could keep producing long past 2030, when scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The auction comes after a federal judge in a lawsuit brought by Republican states rejected a suspension of fossil fuel sales that Biden imposed when he first took office.
The Democrat campaigned on promises to curb fossil fuels from public lands and waters, which, including coal, account for about a quarter of U.S. carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Yet, Wednesday’s sale illustrates Biden’s issues gaining ground on climate issues at home.
The administration last week proposed another round of oil and gas lease sales in 2022, in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and other western states. Interior Department officials proceeded, despite concluding that burning the fuels could lead to billions of dollars in potential future climate damage.
“We had Trump’s unconstrained approach to oil and gas on federal lands, and Biden’s early attempt to pause drilling. Now, it looks as if the Biden administration is trying to find a new policy,” said researcher Robert Johnston with Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “They’re being very cautious about undermining their fragile momentum” on climate issues, he added.
The energy bureau said in pre-sale documents released Tuesday that it received bids on 307 tracts totaling nearly 2,700 square miles. That’s the largest total for a single sale since Gulf-wide bidding resumed in 2017. Those seven sales have generated almost $1 billion in total revenue.
Environmental reviews of the Gulf of Mexico sale conducted under former President Donald Trump and affirmed under Biden reached an unlikely conclusion: Extracting and burning the fuel would result in fewer greenhouse gases than leaving it in the ground.
Similar claims in two other cases in Alaska were rejected by federal courts after challenges from environmentalists. Climate scientist Peter Erickson said the Interior Department’s analysis left out greenhouse gas increases overseas as a result of more Gulf oil on the market.