Biden doubles down

Biden administration weighs complete block of offshore oil drilling as prices soar

On Thursday, the 90-day comment period for the Department of the Interior's (DOI) proposed five-year offshore leasing plan ended, paving the way for the agency to issue a final decision. In July, the DOI unveiled the plan which gutted a Trump administration proposal, ruling out any leasing in the Atlantic or Pacific and opening the door to an unprecedented scenario where no lease sales would be held through 2028.

Under the DOI's proposal, the federal government could choose to hold anywhere between 0-11 offshore lease sales, compared to the Trump administration's version which called for 47 such sales. Federal law mandates the interior secretary to issue offshore leasing plans every five years laying out prospective oil and gas lease sales.

However, the administration dragged its feet on a replacement plan as it considered objections from environmental groups, which oppose all new fossil fuel leasing, and pressure from industry as gas prices surged. In her statement announcing the proposal on July 1, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland reaffirmed her and President Biden's "commitment to transition to a clean energy economy."

The stated “logic” greens use to explain their opposition to new drilling, pipelines, and power plants, is that they’ll last for decades, and lock us into continuing to use fossil fuels. Better, they say, to import oil from other countries for a few more years, just until all sorts of wonderful solar devices have been invented and installed nationwide. When will those new miracles, like batteries that can supply weeks, rather than minutes of our national energy requirements, be invented? Where will we get the minerals to build them? What will we use to replace the 70% of oil production that isn’t used for electricity, but is essential to manufacture asphalt for roads, plastics for everything, and fertilizers? Well, you must be a racist homophobe, you ask questions like that.