White House restarting federal oil, gas lease sales next week
The Biden administration quietly announced Friday that it was restarting the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land next week — almost exactly 15 months after President Biden imposed a moratorium on such sales upon taking office.
The Interior Department announced that its Bureau of Land Management would make approximately 144,000 acres of federal land available for lease beginning Monday — an 80% reduction in the acreage of land that had originally been considered for oil and gas exploration.
The Department also announced that energy companies will have to pay the government royalties amounting to 18.75% of the value of what they extract from their lease, up from 12.5%.
Biden imposed a moratorium on the sale of new leases one week after his inauguration, but the order was later blocked by a Louisiana federal judge who granted a preliminary injunction to 13 states that claimed they would suffer “irreparable injury” by the White House move.
US District Judge Terry Doughty ruled that only Congress has the power to pause offshore oil and gas leases and ordered that plans be resumed for delayed lease sales for the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
This is a developing story