The Biden administration canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease sales pending before the Department of the Interior Wednesday, as Americans face record-high prices at the pump, according to AAA. The DOI halted the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, along with two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. The move comes as Biden has taken a few actions to combat high gas prices, despite his administration’s generally hostile approach to the oil industry. A DOI spokesperson cited a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision “not to move forward” with the Cook Inlet lease sale, CBS News reported. The spokesperson also said the department canceled the Gulf of Mexico leases – lease 259 and lease 261 – due to “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.” Gas prices have soared by 50% nationwide over the past year. Federal law requires DOI to stick to a five-year leasing plan for auctioning offshore leases. The department had until the end fo the current five-year plan – due to expire on June 30 – to complete the sales. Within his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily suspending new oil and gas leases on federal lands. The administration resumed the new leasing last month following court challenges against the ban. The administration is appealing a ruling in which Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee, struck down the ban. The Washington, D.C., District Court invalidated another Gulf of Mexico lease, lease 257, in January. The administration is not appealing the ruling, though it affects a separate lease from the ones the DOI spokesperson mentioned Wednesday. Steve Milloy, a former Trump-Pence EPA transition member and founder of JunkScience.com, traced these lease cancelations back to President Biden in remarks to FOX Business Wednesday. “In Alaska, the problem was that the greens scared off virtually everyone,” Milloy said. “It’s expensive to explore and drill, and the greens made it pretty clear, they were going to make it even more difficult.” When former President Trump opened Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, the lease sale attracted only three bidders, including the state of Alaska itself. “I blame Biden for all lack of production. He has scared away investment,” Milloy told FOX Business. “I don’t trust him in court defending leasing,” he added, suggesting that the president will find “any excuse to not drill. They even tried to use the social cost of carbon decision to stop leasing.” Average gas prices in the U.S. have reached new record-highs in recent days, according to AAA’s gas price calculator. The national average cost of a regular gas of gasoline hit $4.374 on Tuesday, a new record, and $4.404 on Wednesday, another record. The prices come as the European Union edges toward oil sanctions on Russia amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. It also comes amid record-high inflation, with the consumer price index reaching 8.3% in April, hovering near March’s 40-year high.
Biden wind far auction draws record $$.37 in bids
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – The Biden administration’s sale of offshore wind development rights off the coasts of New York and New Jersey drew a record $4.37 billion in high bids from developers that included major European energy companies. The auction, which began on Wednesday and stretched into Friday afternoon, is the first offshore wind lease sale under U.S. President Joe Biden, who sees the expansion of the industry as a way to tackle climate change and create jobs.The administration has set a goal to install some 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030 along the nation’s coastlines and several states, including New York and New Jersey, have set ambition mandates for clean power adoption. “This week’s offshore wind sale makes one thing clear: The enthusiasm for the clean energy economy is undeniable and it’s here to stay,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The auction’s scale marks a major step forward for offshore wind power in the United States, which has lagged European nations in developing the technology. Currently, the United States has just two small offshore wind facilities, off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia, along with two additional commercial-scale projects recently approved for development. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees energy development in federal waters, offered six leases across 488,201 acres (197,568 hectares) between New York’s Long Island and New Jersey, an area known as the New York Bight. By the end of the auction, total high bids on the six blocks amounted to $4.37 billion. That is more than three times the revenue received from all U.S. offshore oil and gas lease auctions over the past five years.The top bidder was Bight Wind Holdings LLC, a joint venture between Germany’s largest power producer RWE (RWEG.DE) and Britain’s National Grid (NG.L), which won a single 125,964-acre parcel for $1.1 billion. Other winning bidders included Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight LLC, a fifty-fifty joint venture between Shell New Energies US LLC (SHEL.L) and EDF Renewables North America (EDF.PA), whose parent companies are European energy giants. An offshore energy industry group, the National Ocean Industries Association, said the auction reflected optimism among offshore wind developers of strong future demand. “The record-shattering interest in the New York Bight lease sale is testament to how bright the American offshore wind outlook is and how confident developers are in the strength of the U.S. offshore wind industry as a whole,” said Erik Milito, president of NOIA. Not everyone supports offshore wind development. The Biden administration’s ambitions have stoked concerns among commercial fishermen and coastal communities about harm to their livelihoods and property values. In January, a group of New Jersey residents sued BOEM over its leasing plans for the New York Bight. The group, from the summer colony of Long Beach Island, is concerned about the aesthetic impacts of the turbines and potential lost tourism. Commercial scallop fishermen in the region are also worried that the construction of offshore projects will hurt scallop populations and complicate navigation.NN: their has never been a offshore wind farm that has ever made any money. Two problems the wind does not blow enough and they are a maintained nightmare. Wire and electricity does not like salt water. Proven oil well energy production is a 100 year winner. Government makes a 20% royalty. No wind farm anywhere in the world has ever paid a royalty or justified its costs.In fact they are heavily subsidized. But why let the facts get in the way.