The Biden administration on Friday disclosed its final offshore oil and gas leasing plan for the next five years with the “fewest oil and gas lease sales in history,” which the industry says fails to meet America’s growing energy needs and puts its energy security at risk.
The plan, mandated by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), imposes significant restrictions on offshore oil and gas lease sales as part of the administration’s commitment to its climate agenda.
Under the finalized plan, the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will conduct three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico in 2025, 2027, and 2029, marking the fewest in the department’s periodic leasing plans. The plan explicitly excludes leasing off the Alaskan coast as well as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, representing a departure from previous strategies.
The administration acknowledged that the IRA compelled a balance between conventional and green energy projects, which it signaled prevented an even more restrictive five-year lease sale program.
The legislation, signed by President Biden last year, mandates the federal government to lease at least 60 million acres for oil and gas exploration as a condition for issuing offshore wind power leases, highlighting the intricate link between fossil fuels and renewable energy development.
“These three lease sales are the minimum number that will enable the Interior Department’s offshore wind energy program to continue issuing leases in a way that will ensure continued progress towards the Administration’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030,” the DOI said in a statement.
America currently has just two small offshore wind energy pilot projects, one off the coast of Rhode Island and the other off Virginia’s coast, but the DOI has permitted several large-scale facilities since 2021 that are slated to come online in coming years.
The DOI emphasized that the areas considered for leasing and the number of lease sales in the 2024–2029 Final Program have been substantially narrowed compared to the previous administration’s proposal. The previous administration had initially suggested 47 lease sales off all coastal areas in the United States.
Critics, including the American Petroleum Institute (API), voiced strong opposition to the plan.
API’s Vice President of Upstream Policy Holly Hopkins called it a “step in the wrong direction.”
“Simply put, this final 5-year program fails to meet the energy needs of the American people and could threaten to increase reliance on foreign energy sources,” she said in a statement.
Ms. Hopkins highlighted the growing demand for affordable and reliable energy, criticizing the federal government for “choosing to limit future production” in a region she argues plays a crucial role in powering the nation and which provides “among the lowest carbon-intensive barrels” globally.
President Biden’s approach to leasing “significantly curtails access to a critical national asset,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents both traditional and renewable offshore energy producers, in a statement on Friday.
“The White House simply ignores energy realities by once again limiting U.S. energy production opportunities,” he added.
“With global demand at record levels and continuing to rise, regressive policies will harm Americans of all walks of life by putting upward pressure on prices at the pump, destroying good-paying jobs that form the fabric of Gulf Coast communities, and relinquishing geopolitical advantages of energy production to countries like Russia, Iran and China,” he continued.
On the environmental front, concerns were raised by ocean conservation groups, particularly targeting the administration’s decision to allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Beth Lowell, Oceana’s vice president for the United States, expressed her disappointment, saying, “This Five-Year Plan started with President Trump proposing to open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore oil drilling and ends with President Biden’s final plan that is the smallest to date.”
“The footprint of offshore drilling was not expanded, but the dangerous cycle of drilling and spilling must end,” Ms. Lowell added.
Maybe we should give the dozens of dead whales a vote who washed up on shore because of the windmills of their liberal minds that created the electric generating windmills of whale death, that is just a prelude to the death of our powergrid. If I were a whale, I’d spend less time in their San Francisco bay inspired love boat lazy river environments of weaseling double dieseling Aids infested fairy boats, but spend more time in the voting booths swallowing Democrat political Pinocchio’s whose prevaricating noses have grown longer than any deep drilling oil rig that might occasionally leak and pollute, all the while the Liberal graveyards of leaky used and discarded car batteries perpetually and permanently pollute the very underground watersheds that provide Californians and the country with the living water that produces both food and all basic life. Theirs indeed is a whale of a tale and it’s all true they swear by their tatoo’s.
Well, libs ARE pushing for more ‘rights for animals’..
Does this sound like the Democrat Party’s treasonous, corrupt, sock-puppet comrade Joe Beijing Barack OBiden is working for the benefit of of the U.S. citizens? Or does it sound like this treasonous, corrupt, sock-puppet comrade Joe Beijing Biden is working for every country EXCEPT our U.S.A.?
This Democrat Party’s treasonous, corrupt, sock-puppet comrade Joe Beijing Biden destructive Bidenomics and his illegal immigration invasion should put him in prison, NOT in the White House.
Treason is the seasoning of his reasoning. Apparently some foreogners are offering a better deal than the traditional 10%.
The fewest leases in history? Why should this come as a surprise? During his campaign, he declared war on the fossil fuel industry (and the USA I might add!)
But the “useful idiots” voted him into office, (along with the dead, the ballot harvesters, rigged voting machines and corrupt poll workers etc.)
He’s about as corrupt as HilLIARy and Osama Bin Biden (aka Barry). All of these DemonRats are bent on destruction of America for their own benefit.
YET some other sites, folks are claiming “WE ARE MAKING MORE OIL NOW under biden than ever before..”
Once again this administration shows that it is the most inept administration in US history!
Intentionally inept.
I suppose “inept” is an accurate description of the Biden administration, as it is clear that Joe is mentally and physically impaired. However, corruption and Marxist philosophy are the most dangerous aspects of this administration, and we can be sure that the leftist minions who are actually running the White House and pulling the “inept” Biden strings know exactly what they are doing.
Plus, can we even SAY Its really being inept, WHEN THIS IS part of their agenda??
the new world order dont include us conservatives no beef for you now cows no milk in the name of climate change.
the green movement is where all the communist reside in the democratic party of stalin.