This year marks first since 1958 that US held no oil and gas lease sales

This year will be the first year since 1958 that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held no offshore oil and gas lease sales.

Energy expert Alex Epstein, author of “Fossil Future,” argued at a recent House Budget Committee hearing the United States' record-high oil production is in spite of the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, not because of them. The data suggests he could be right, which means the impacts of the administration’s energy policies will be seen in the next four years.

Offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico accounts for 14% of the total oil production in the U.S., and production in the Gulf has remained unchanged for the past five consecutive months, which was one of the flattest lines in all the Energy Information Administration’s data. Exploration, which is the process of identifying potential drilling locations, has been declining at an annual rate of 14% since 2014.

The Biden-Harris administration wouldn’t have offered offshore oil and gas lease sales in 2023 except for a requirement in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who state's economy is reliant to the fossil fuel industry, said in a congressional hearing last year the administration wanted to do away with the federal oil and gas leasing program entirely. To ensure the Interior Department continued to hold leases, Manchin said, fossil fuel proponent incorporated a provision in the IRA that prohibited the department from issuing offshore wind leases without also offering ones for offshore oil and gas.

President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to building 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, which meant BOEM had to offer a lease last year. The administration attempted to reduce the size of the 2023 lease sale by 6 million acres and impose restrictions on oil and gas vessels in response to anti-fossil fuel environmental groups' protests about potential impacts of oil and gas development on endangered Rice whales.

While these same environmental groups and the Biden-Harris administration have continually denied that whales are harmed by hundreds of massive wind towers being pounded into the seabed floor, the administration would have gone forward with the restrictions on the 2023 lease sale were it not for a federal judge determining the restrictions to be unlawful.

The only lease sale in 2022 was a bit of acreage offered in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, and it resulted in a single bid.

In December, the administration released the final version of its five-year offshore drilling program, which provides the fewest oil and gas lease sales in the history of the program. The program allows for only three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, which will be held in 2025, 2027 and 2029.

Elmer “Bud” Peter Danenberger, an engineer who spent 38 years in the Interior Department's offshore oil and gas program, noted on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that while the Biden-Harris administration has impeded America’s offshore oil and gas development, it hasn’t reimposed sanctions on Venezuela despite evidence that it failed to hold democratically sound elections as was required by the administration's agreement to ease sanctions. 

“Apparently, the climate activists who have imposed their will on the OCS [outer continental shelf] oil and gas program have less influence over our policy toward Venezuela. Or perhaps the production (and consumption) of Venezuelan oil is cleaner and greener,” Bud wrote, noting that he was being sarcastic.