Biden OK’s Limited Offshore Drilling, Relenting on Campaign Promise

The Biden administration plans to schedule three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years, a reversal of the president’s campaign promise to stop all new offshore drilling under his administration. 

The Interior Department, which oversees oil leases, said the sales are necessary because of last year’s clean-energy legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency said the law mandated that millions of acres of oil and gas leases needed to be offered by the administration in exchange for the expansion of offshore wind projects.

The five-year program will be the fewest oil and gas lease sales in U.S. history and will allow the Biden administration to “support the growing offshore wind industry,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said.