Feds to restart oil leasing after Biden loss in court – By Jazz Shaw (Hot Air) / Aug 26 2021
On the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, among the record-setting flurry of executive orders he signed was a “pause” on all new drilling leases for oil and gas on federal lands. That pause was intended to provide time to “investigate” the situation but it quickly began to look as if it might be indefinite. That situation led a dozen of the nation’s major oil and gas producing states to take the federal government to court and have them restart the leases. The White House lost that court battle in June and they now appear to be nearly out of appeals. A quiet announcement from the Biden administration on Tuesday indicated that they would restart the oil and gas leasing program as soon as next week and will reopen bidding for drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico by early October. So whatever happened to all of that “studying” they were supposedly doing? (Reuters)
The Biden administration said on Tuesday it would take steps to restart the federal oil and gas leasing program in the next week and plans to hold a Gulf of Mexico auction as soon as October, court papers showed.
The move comes two months after the U.S Interior Department first said it would comply with a June 15 federal judge’s order blocking its months-long pause in oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.
That order was a blow to a key White House effort to address climate change by reining in fossil fuel extraction.
