Input Stories

The Biden administration has resumed its statutory obligation and issued several hundred oil and gas leases from a 2021 Gulf of Mexico lease auction, Bloomberg reports.

• Earlier this year, a federal district judge invalidated the 2021 auction “after finding the Interior Department hadn’t sufficiently analyzed the climate change impacts.”

What’s going on: In recent months, the administration has urged domestic oil companies to produce more crude.

• “The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it had accepted 307 winning bids from that November 2021 sale.”
• The issuance of the leases is also required under a provision of the recently passed reconciliation bill.

Our view: “Manufacturers benefit when the U.S. reduces its reliance on foreign oil and instead bolsters domestic energy production—that’s why the NAM has been urging President Biden to act,” said NAM Vice President of Energy and Resources Policy Rachel Jones. “In fact, the ask at the top of our list was to ‘restart and expand oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.’”