The Department of the Interior is moving ahead with plans to hold an oil and gas lease sale for the Gulf of Mexico. Possibly sometime in October. The announcement comes after the Department of Justice stated that it would comply with a federal courts’ order requiring the resumption of oil and gas lease sales after those sales were halted by a moratorium.
Louisiana Oil and Gas Association President Mike Moncla celebrated the news. He said he doesn’t know why the Biden Administration changed course, but it might be due to prices at the pump.
“Their policies of trying to ban everything that helps us to survive in the oil and gas industry is coming back to haunt them,” said Moncla.
The Biden Administration previously stated that reducing domestic oil and gas production was key to limiting global warming. As a result After taking office earlier this year, the Administration banned new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands and waters, but unlike the Obama Administration, it did not continue to challenge federal court rejections of the moratorium policy. Moncla said that policy just leads to more production in other countries.
“The oil that comes out of the Gulf of Mexico is the cleanest oil in the world, it is the envy of the world as far as emissions go for oil,” said Moncla.
The moratorium was a campaign promise by then-candidate Joe Biden who vowed to set the country on the path to carbon neutrality by 2050. A recent IPCC report noted that if the world does not reach carbon neutrality by roughly 2050 that mankind will face irreversible and catastrophic levels of global warming.
Moncla says the lease sale ban reversal coupled with rising oil prices helps put the local industry back on track.
“It was $37 dollars on November 2nd and today we are around $70 so that is good for activity around our state,” said Moncla.
The sale notice reportedly is likely to come sometime in September.
Comments