This year will be the first time since 1958 that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will not hold an offshore oil and gas lease sale. [emphasis, links added]
Energy expert Alex Epstein, author of “Fossil Futures,” argued at a recent House Budget Committee hearing that record U.S. oil production is despite the Biden-Harris administration's because of the policies, not because of them.
Data shows he may be right This means the impact of government energy policy will be felt over the next four years.
Offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico accounts for 14% of total U.S. oil production, and Gulf production has been unchanged for five consecutive months, one of the flattest lines in all EIA data.
Exploration, the process of identifying potential drilling locations, has declined at an annual rate of 14% since 2014.
The Biden-Harris administration will not offer offshore oil and gas lease sales in 2023, except as required in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, whose state's economy relies on the fossil fuel industry, told a congressional hearing last year that the administration wanted to completely repeal the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Manchin said that in order to ensure that the Interior Department continues to hold the lease, Fossil fuel proponents included a provision in the IRA that prohibits the department from issuing offshore wind leases without providing offshore oil and gas leases.
President Biden's pledge to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the United States by 2030 meant BOEM had to provide leasing services last year.
The government is seeking to reduce the size of 2023 lease sales by 6 million acres and impose restrictions on oil and gas vessels in response to protests from anti-fossil fuel environmental groups over the potential impact of oil and gas development on endangered rice whales.
This despite continued denials from these environmental groups and the Biden-Harris administration that whales are being harmed by hundreds of large wind towers being smashed into the ocean floor. The government would have continued to impose restrictions on rental sales in 2023 if a federal judge had not ruled the restrictions illegal.
The only lease sale in 2022 was a small tract of land in Cook Inlet, Alaska, which resulted in a single bid.
In December, the government released the final version of its five-year offshore drilling plan, which delivered the fewest oil and gas lease sales in the program's history.
Plan allows only three oil and gas lease sales in Gulf of Mexicowill be held in 2025, 2027 and 2029.
Read the break from Just The News
