Gulf, Alaska oil-gas leases canceled
Industry objects to the government’s action, which leaves offshore drilling future adrift
WASHINGTON — Sales of offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska have been canceled, the Department of Interior says.
In the Wednesday night announcement, a department spokeswoman said two scheduled Gulf lease sales were canceled as the result of “delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.” She said the lease sale for Alaska’s Cook Inlet was canceled due to lack of industry interest.
The decision stands to add more uncertainty to the future of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the world’s largest offshore oil and gas fields, which has struggled to rebound from the fall in crude prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Oil and gas companies quickly said the decision would likely mean lost jobs and higher domestic energy prices.
“These decisions are devastating to Americans,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Offshore Industries Association, which represents offshore energy companies. “The adverse consequences of the explicit decision to suspend U.S. oil and gas development are being felt in a very hard way by everyday Americans and by our allies around the world.”
Offshore lease sales are at the center of an ongoing legal fight between the administration and the oil industry. Upon coming into office, Biden put offshore lease sales on hold while the Interior Department studied the environmental impact of offshore oil production.
But that decision was ruled illegal by a federal judge in Louisiana last year, forcing the administration to hold a lease sale in November. Then in January, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., offered a conflicting opin
ion, finding that the administration had failed to adequately assess the climate impact before holding the lease sale.
“This was the only responsible decision the Biden administration could make legally & the only correct decision for climate and the future of Cook Inlet and the Gulf,” Abbie Dillen, president of activist group Earthjustice, tweeted Thursday morning.
Thursday’s announcement comes as the Biden administration struggles to marry its long-term plan to address climate change with efforts to counter high energy prices hitting motorists in the United States and Europe.
In recent months, the administration has approved expanded export permits for LNG projects
and announced a record release from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite criticism from environmentalists.
With midterm elections six months away, Republicans looked to cast the decision to cancel the lease sales as destructive to the U.S. economy.
Rep. Garret Graves, Rlouis., ranking member on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said Thursday that the cancellations “approach levels of irresponsibility and reckless stupidity never seen before.
“We are paying record prices for gasoline and to heat and cool our homes. Rather than using American energy sources to help solve the problem and lower prices, the Biden administration continues to carry out policies that only benefit Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other apparent allies of this White House.”