The Biden administration is at a crossroads on offshore drilling. The Interior Department is finishing a five-year plan for new offshore oil and gas leases in federal waters, which could either hasten the decline of the nation’s offshore oil business or lock the country into many more years of drilling, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Heather Richards. President Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to end oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, but he later made concessions to pro-fossil-fuel Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to win passage of last year’s landmark climate law. Under the law, for example, Biden will reinstate three offshore oil sales he had canceled last year. The law also ties the number of allowed offshore wind leases to oil and gas leases. Interior’s forthcoming blueprint thus stands as a test for how Biden will balance his climate pledges with other political considerations, including consumers’ frustration with high fuel costs. “What's at stake is the pace of oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico, which has climate ramifications and energy supply ramifications,” Heather told Power Switch this morning. Burning fossil fuels is the main driver of the climate emergency, and the Gulf of Mexico is the country’s largest offshore supplier of crude oil. Rigs in the Gulf provide 15 percent of the nation’s total oil supply and can operate for decades. What’s on the table : A draft of the five-year plan released in July said the final proposal could include up to 11 sales, or none at all. Environmentalists are pushing for the latter, while the oil and gas industry is lobbying for the former. The final plan is expected in the coming weeks. It’s unclear how much the industry would capitalize on such leases. Only one company bid on a lease in a recent auction in Alaska. But how far the administration moves in one direction or the other is certain to catch the eye of the new Republican majority in the House, whose members have pledged to energize U.S. oil production.
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