News that the administration doesn’t want much attention over tends to get released On Fridays.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that last Friday, the Biden administration offered up its plan to severely restrict the number of offshore oil and gas lease sales over the next five years. It is also aimed to hinder any energy resource expansion that may be planned by a future administration that actually puts the interest of the American people first.
The Interior Department announced its final drilling plan for offshore oil and gas leasing over the next five years on Friday, setting three further lease sales between 2024 and 2029.The federal government is required to lease at least 60 million acres for oil and gas exploration as a condition of issuing offshore wind power leases under the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.In the final plan, the department set a lease sale in the Outer Continental Shelf for 2025, with another to follow in 2027 and a third in 2029.
Business leaders and realists are angered about the threat to the country’s economic security under this plan.
“President Biden’s approach to severely limit leasing significantly curtails access to a critical national asset,” Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents both traditional and renewable offshore energy producers, said in a statement Friday. “The White House simply ignores energy realities by once again limiting U.S. energy production opportunities.””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.
Energy industry representatives are pointing out this action’s clear and likely consequences.
The industry’s largest trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, said the limits would weaken the security provided by domestic energy, and potentially further feed inflation. “The Biden administration is choosing failed energy policies that are adding to the pain Americans are feeling at the pump,” the group’s leader Mike Sommers said in a statement.
On the other hand, environmentalists are unhappy that the plans aren’t restrictive enough.
Environmental groups also took issue with the plan, with the ocean conservation groups hitting the administration for allowing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.“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,” Beth Lowell, Oceana’s vice president for the United States, wrote in a statement.“The footprint of offshore drilling was not expanded, but the dangerous cycle of drilling and spilling must end,” Lowell said.
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