The Interior Department plans to file its new five-year offshore leasing proposal by the end of June, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Thursday, following pressure from Republicans and a growing number of Democrats to lay out plans for the future, with just weeks before the current program is slated to expire.
Haaland made the announcement Thursday morning in an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. There, she told lawmakers that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “is moving forward expeditiously” on developing the new five-year program.
“The [Interior] Department will release the proposed program, which is the next step in the five-year planning process — by June 30, which is the expiration of the current program,” she said.
“We take this responsibility seriously and are not prejudging an outcome,” she told lawmakers, adding: “I welcome your continued interest in inquiries, and my team will follow up next month with details of a proposed plan.”
Haaland’s announcement follows weeks of mounting concern and calls to submit the five-year plan both from Republicans and some Democrats.
Once submitted, offshore drilling proposals typically take between six and 12 months to be finalized and approved.
A lapse in the five-year program could drive down production by roughly 500,000 barrels per day, according to a March analysis by the American Petroleum Institute and the National Ocean Industries Association.
On Thursday, Haaland said inaction by the previous administration, as well as various court hurdles, were partially to blame for the Interior Department’s failure to file its proposal sooner.
“The previous administration had stopped work in 2018 on the new five-year plan, so there has been a lot to do to catch up on this,” Haaland said. “Varying conflicting litigation has also been a factor.”
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In a statement, Earthjustice’s vice president of litigation Drew Caputo said: “It’s time to end new offshore oil leasing and move toward a just clean energy transition. There’s already more offshore oil under lease than the climate can stand. We can either deal with climate change or continue with business as usual on offshore oil development. We can’t do both.”
The American Petroleum Institute said the Interior Department’s five-year plan announcement underscored the “disconnect” between political rhetoric and reality.
Today’s announcement “confirms they are significantly behind in this multi-year process and will release a proposed program by June 30 — the day they should be finalizing it,” senior API official Frank Macchiarola said in a statement. “The practical effect of this is that it is unlikely there will be offshore lease sales before the end of 2023. This is one more example of the disconnect between the administration’s political rhetoric and policy reality.”
