The Biden administration is proposing to hold new oil and gas lease sales in a loss for Democrats and environmental groups who want to see an end to offshore drilling.
The Interior Department belatedly proposed an offshore leasing program to succeed the current plan, which expired Thursday, providing for between zero and a maximum 11 new lease sales between 2023 and 2028.
GREEN GROUPS SUE TO STOP BIDEN’S LARGEST ONSHORE OIL AND GAS LEASE SALE
Interior’s proposed program includes 10 potential sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska.
The inclusion of potential lease sales in the proposed program does not guarantee those sales will be included in the final program, nor does the inclusion of a given lease sale in the final program mean that sale will ultimately be carried out, a point Secretary Deb Haaland emphasized in a statement Friday.
“A Proposed Program is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” Haaland said.
The department made the same point in a legal brief filed on Monday, saying that “during the course of every prior five-year program, Interior has used its discretion to hold fewer sales than contemplated by the applicable program.”
In May, Interior canceled the lone Alaska lease sale that was included in the expiring five-year program, as well as the two remaining Gulf lease sales.
The proposed program is not final, but it runs counter to President Joe Biden’s campaign promises to end offshore drilling.
Biden has been under immense pressure from climate change activists and some Democrats to fulfill that promise and to restrict oil and gas development more aggressively on federal lands as a means to abate climate change.
Green groups and some congressional Democrats have lobbied the administration to propose a five-year program that excludes lease sales altogether in order to avoid additional greenhouse gas emissions.
At the same time, the administration has been facing competing pressures to help alleviate high energy prices and make the U.S. more independent of foreign energy sources.
Oil and gas industry players, Republicans, and some Democrats have urged the administration to continue leasing offshore to reduce dependence on foreign oil and increase supplies on the global energy market.
Biden acted to restrict new oil and gas leasing during his first week in office but has seen his power limited. A federal court ruled against his executive order pausing new leasing last summer, a ruling the administration is currently appealing.
Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee, ruled that federal laws covering mineral leasing do not give agencies discretion to pause lease sales. The administration has since scheduled and carried out multiple oil and gas lease sales both on and offshore, citing Doughty’s ruling.
Sen. Joe Manchin, one of a handful of Democrats who urged the Biden administration to issue an offshore program and carry out lease sales quickly, welcomed the “long-overdue” proposal and noted that consumers have been shouldering record-high energy prices.
“Against this backdrop, I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table,” he said Friday.
Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said the administration should “act swiftly to finalize and implement the program as proposed, without reduced acreage.”
The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees onshore lease sales on federal lands, reduced by 80% the acreage made available in its most recent round of lease sales.
Environmental groups sharply criticized the proposed program for including the potential for any lease sales.
“We are devastated that the administration continues to capitulate to fossil fuel interests,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director of Friends of the Earth.
Templton’s group argued the administration has the authority to issue a program with no lease sales.
“President Biden’s empty climate promises expose him as yet another leader who cares more about polluters than about a livable future for people and the planet,” Templeton said.
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Interior’s proposed program must now undergo a public comment period and will take months to finalize.
