A Gulf oil lease sale set to be held St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans won’t happen due to the 60-day lease sale moratorium issued in January by President Biden.
Louisiana Oil and Gas Association President Mike Moncla said the industry is in real, long-term danger along with the jobs of 50,000 Louisiana oil and gas workers and 250,000 industry and industry adjacent workers in the Gulf South.
The Administration countered that lowering US and international oil production is necessary to stave off catastrophic levels of global temperature increases in the future.
Moncla disputed Biden’s claim the moratorium is good environmental policy. He said oil and gas taxes have generated 280 million dollars over the past few years to support coastal restoration projects.
“If this president is real about fixing the environment and doing what is right this directly goes against that,” said Moncla
Climate activists argue without a drastic reduction in worldwide carbon output sea level rise will outpace any ability to mitigate it through coastal projects or levee construction.
Moncla said long term these restrictive policies will kill oil and gas jobs, but in the short term, it’s surprisingly resulted in more industry jobs, not fewer.
“When you look at the price of oil just days before the election, I think November 2nd the price of oil was 37 dollars, fast forward to March and we’re at 67 dollars,” said Moncla.
The moratorium did not ban drilling on already existing leases.
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