FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 17, 2021
DENVER—Today, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management offered more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leases. Combined, oil companies including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and others purchased the rights to drill on some 1.7 million acres—an area larger than the state of Delaware. The auction comes shortly after President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland returned from the international climate conference in Glasgow, where they sought to reassert the United States’ leadership on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In response, the Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Jesse Prentice-Dunn:
“Today’s lease sale is a black eye for the Biden administration. After President Biden and Secretary Haaland traveled to Glasgow to assert America’s leadership on climate, they have now released a carbon bomb in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Right now, companies are still producing oil offshore on leases granted in the 1940’s. That means the impacts of this lease sale will be measured not in years, but in generations.
“To their credit, the Biden administration has taken significant steps to boost renewable energy, protect public lands, and ensure communities across our country are part of the climate solution. But today’s lease sale, which was proposed by the Trump administration, will undermine that work for decades to come.”
Learn more
- America’s Public Lands Giveaway [Center for Western Priorities]
- U.S. to hold historic oil and gas lease sale days after COP26 [Washington Post]