White House cancels three offshore oil lease sales in Gulf Coast, Alaska

The White House announced this week that it will be canceling the lease sale of an oil and gas opportunity in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, citing a lack of interest in drilling off the Alaska coast and “conflicting court rulings” that have complicated drilling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Biden administration had until the end of the current federally-required five year lease plan to decide whether to complete the sale and open up the potential for drilling in over 1 million acres of the Cook Inlet in Alaska. The White House delivered its final decision when the Department of the Interior announced it would be canceling the sale due to “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area.”

Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski rebuffed the White House’s reasoning for canceling the sale. “Citing a ‘lack of industry interest’ is nothing more than fantasy from an administration that shuns U.S. energy production. Cook Inlet is the sole source of the natural gas that more than 400,000 people in Southcentral Alaska—and significant military bases that are critical to our national security—depend on,” Senator Murkowski said.

She added, “I can say with full certainty, based on conversations as recently as last night, that Alaska’s industry does have interest in lease sales in Cook Inlet. To claim otherwise is simply false, not to mention stunningly short-sighted. The Biden administration needs to recognize how this decision is going to hurt Alaskans, reverse it immediately, and get the federal oil and gas program back on track now.”

The decision to cancel the lease sale comes at a politically volatile time for the Biden administration, as it scrambles to address record inflation and soaring gas prices, which reached an historic national average of $4.45 per gallon this week. Because of this, Republicans have denounced the decision to cancel the lease sales.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) accused the Interior Department’s decision as “reckless stupidity never seen before,’’ adding, “We are paying record prices for gasoline and to heat and cool our homes. Rather than using American energy sources to help solve the problem and lower prices, the Biden administration continues to carry out policies that benefit” other countries.

However, Dustin Renaud, a spokesman for the environmental coalition Healthy Gulf, countered Rep. Graves comments. “New leasing will not lower current gas prices. It takes several years for new leases to begin producing oil,” adding that the industry “is already sitting on over 8 million acres of unused offshore leases.’’