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"Communities of the Gulf Coast are tired of being a sacrifice zone, and the Biden administration disappointingly missed a historic opportunity to protect our people and planet," one campaigner said of the latest auction.
Climate campaigners are calling out U.S. President Joe Biden for holding a court-ordered auction for drilling rights in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico this week as they demand far bolder action on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
After a drawn-out legal battle over 73 million acres important to the endangered Rice's whale as well as local fishing and tourism, Lease Sale 261 was held Wednesday and raised $382 million from 26 companies including Anadarko, BP, Chevron, Hess, Equinor, Repsol, and Shell.
With the sale, "we're again seeing our waters and environment sold off at bargain prices to oil and gas companies, just devastating after a year of record-breaking heat," said Healthy Gulf campaign director Raleigh Hoke. "Communities of the Gulf Coast are tired of being a sacrifice zone, and the Biden administration disappointingly missed a historic opportunity to protect our people and planet and solidify his commitment to climate justice by standing up to Big Oil."
"Lease Sale 261 is a major step backwards for President Biden's climate and justice goals."
Hoke and others, including Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), stressed that future drilling in the region could imperil marine life, including further threats to the already at-risk whale species.
"The oil industry and its allies know the Rice's whale could go extinct if they keep expanding Gulf drilling, but they've pushed aggressively to prioritize their profits and hold this sale anyway," said Monsell. "Perpetual leasing, new fossil fuel export projects, and oil spills in the Gulf are creating a hellish situation for marine life and frontline communities that's only getting worse. We can't wait any longer for President Biden to fight back and phase out offshore drilling altogether."
Oceana acting campaign director Michael Messmer pointed out that "the gluttonous appetite of oil and gas companies has led them to already hoard away thousands of leases on millions of acres across the Gulf of Mexico. They don't need any more."
"While President Biden had to move forward with this sale by court order, he does have the authority to prevent the expansion of offshore drilling through executive authority to permanently protect U.S. waters and coasts," Messmer added. "The United States can lead the call for a transition away from fossil fuels that was agreed upon by more than 200 countries at COP28 last week, but only if President Biden steps up to permanently protect our waters from future offshore drilling."
The final deal out of COP28, the United Nations climate talks that concluded in Dubai earlier this month, explicitly endorsed a move away from fossil fuels—a historic first but far from the phaseout demanded by science and many countries enduring the impacts of global warming, including rising seas, more extreme weather, and devastating wildfires.
"On the heels of a historic global agreement at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels and the release of the first-ever White House Ocean Justice Strategy, Lease Sale 261 is a major step backwards for President Biden's climate and justice goals," said Ocean Defense Initiative director Jean Flemma.
While campaigning in 2020, Biden—who is now seeking reelection next year—vowed to end new fossil fuel leases for public lands and waters, but he has run up against the courts and industry allies in Congress. A CBD analysis from January found that the administration allowed more drilling permits for federal land during its first two years than were approved in 2017-18 under former President Donald Trump, the GOP's 2024 front-runner who says he wants to "drill, drill, drill" if reelected.
The Inflation Reduction Act signed by Biden last year included significant climate provisions but also mandated some lease sales—including the one held Wednesday—and conditioned the use of public lands and waters for renewable energy development on future fossil fuel auctions. In line with that, the administration on Friday finalized a new offshore drilling plan.
The five-year plan features the fewest Gulf sales in history, with just three set to be held in 2025, 2027, and 2029. While Big Oil and its congressional backers wanted a more industry-friendly plan, critics warn any more drilling is incompatible with climate ambitions.
"Each additional oil and gas lease sale makes it harder to achieve the ambitious goals we need to achieve to stave off climate catastrophe," Athan Manuel, Sierra Club's lands protection program director, said Wednesday. "2023 will likely be the hottest year on record. At this critical moment, we should be expanding clean energy, not locking ourselves into fossil fuel for decades. We once again call on the Biden administration to take the bold action we need and end new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters."
Biden has enraged frontline communities, green groups, and younger voters by not only continuing lease sales but also backing liquefied natural gas expansion, the Willow oil project in Alaska, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Appalachia. He also skipped COP28 and has refused to declare a national climate emergency.
"No amount of new leasing or development for offshore oil and gas is acceptable to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis," charged Zero Hour executive director Zanagee Artis. "The hundreds of millions of dollars in bids on Lease Sale 261 represent a failure of our leaders to protect the futures of young people and our most vulnerable communities and ecosystems. It is time to end the era of fossil fuels."
"Voters strongly support transitioning to clean energy projects instead of building fossil fuel projects on public lands," according to new research published as the White House moved forward with a massive lease sale.
Survey data published Wednesday shows that the U.S. electorate's approval of President Joe Biden's handling of the climate crisis has declined since October.
Voters' approval fell even further after they were made aware of the incongruence between Biden's 2020 campaign trail vow to end oil and gas leasing on public lands and his administration's March 13 move to rubber-stamp ConocoPhillips' massive Willow drilling project on federally controlled territory in the Alaskan Arctic.
The decline in support has been most pronounced among Democrats, Independents, and voters under 50, according to polling conducted by Data for Progress and Fossil Free Media.
From October 21-25 and then again from March 17-21, researchers asked respondents if they approved or disapproved of how the Biden administration has addressed climate change and the environment before mentioning any specific policy or decision.
Five months ago, 82% of Democrats, 37% of Independents, and 10% of Republicans gave Biden a thumbs up on this issue. Just over a week ago, approval had decreased among Democrats and Independents, with 69% and 30% of such voters expressing support for the president's climate performance. Meanwhile, Republican support for Biden's environmental policies increased to 17% during this time period.
The drop in support was even steeper among younger voters. In October, 37% of voters 40-49, 51% of voters 30-39, and 48% of voters 18-29 said they approved of the Biden administration's handling of climate change and the environment. Those percentages have decreased across all three age groups, with just 35% of voters 40-49, 45% of voters 30-39, and 35% of voters 18-29 giving the president a passing grade on the issue earlier this month.
"If the move to approve Willow was intended to win the favor of Independents concerned about high energy prices, this research suggests it may not have landed as intended."
Notably, the aforementioned decline in support for Biden's climate performance since October among Democrats (13% drop), Independents (7% drop), and voters aged 18-29 (13% drop) doesn't take into account the president's Willow betrayal. Data for Progress and Fossil Free Media first tested for approval before introducing respondents to the president's campaign promises and news of his administration's decision to greenlight the largest oil drilling endeavor on public land in U.S. history.
Although awareness of the Willow project has increased since October when 71% of voters said they hadn't heard, seen, or read anything at all about the climate-wrecking venture, 52% of voters were still completely unaware of it when surveyed from March 17-21.
After measuring baseline support, pollsters reminded voters of Biden's campaign pledge to ban new fossil fuel leasing on public lands and informed them about his administration's recent approval of the Willow project, which seeks to extract more than 600 million barrels of crude from Alaska's North Slope over the next 30 years. Then, pollsters retested their original question.
Once this contrast was made explicit, public approval of Biden's climate performance plummeted. Net approval measured in March fell by 33 points among Democrats and 12 points among Independents. It's worth noting that in October, Biden enjoyed a net climate approval rating of 68 points among Democrats.
Young voters' disappointment was also palpable, with net approval measured in March falling by 1 point among voters 18-29, 16 points among voters 30-39, and 5 points among voters 40-49.
It's unclear why the Biden administration refused to use its authority to halt a fossil fuel project capable of spewing about 280 million metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere on the same day United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the planet is reaching a "point of no return." Environmental advocacy groups have responded with lawsuits.
Biden may be enjoying higher approval ratings on environmental issues if he had blocked Conoco's drilling proposal. According to Data for Progress and Fossil Free Media, voters remain supportive of the president's original campaign promises on climate.
Researchers also asked respondents whether the federal government should prioritize the production of renewable energy or fossil energy on public lands.
By a 21-point margin, voters said they want new energy developments on public lands to be green, such as wind and solar farms—not planet-heating oil and gas drilling sites.
"This research shows that voters strongly support transitioning to clean energy projects instead of building fossil fuel projects on public lands," wrote Anika Dandekar, a senior analyst at Data for Progress.
The recent approval of the Willow project "not only undermines Biden's campaign promise to transition to a fully clean power sector by no later than 2035, but also may explain why Democrats, Independents, and voters under 50 increasingly disapprove of the Biden administration's handling of climate change and the environment," she noted.
"Younger generations, most likely to be impacted by the further degradation of the environment, are paying attention," Dandekar continued. "Furthermore, if the move to approve Willow was intended to win the favor of Independents concerned about high energy prices, this research suggests it may not have landed as intended."
"If the Biden administration wants to maintain support from these important demographics," she added, "it will need to continue taking bold actions to curb emissions and keep its promises."
Notably, the White House is facing fresh criticism on Wednesday over its decision to plow ahead with Lease Sale 259, one of the largest offshore auctions in U.S. history. Earlier this month, several green groups filed a lawsuit to challenge the sale, which offered more than 73 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to the highest-bidding oil and gas drillers.
"President Biden's decision to once again sacrifice an enormous portion of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling is unconscionable," Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "Reviving lease sales and greenlighting massive fossil fuel projects demonstrates the administration cares more about Big Oil profits than frontline communities and endangered species."
"Reviving lease sales and greenlighting massive fossil fuel projects demonstrates the administration cares more about Big Oil profits than frontline communities and endangered species."
"We will continue pushing Biden to take his long-held climate promises seriously and stop locking us into decades of dirty energy," said Ghio.
A 2021 lawsuit filed by many of the same groups led a federal judge to vacate Lease Sale 257, the nation's largest-ever offshore auction wherein more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico were offered to the fossil fuel industry.
Despite Biden's campaign pledge to curtail new fossil fuel projects on public lands and waters, his administration has approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.
Two weeks ago, a trio of groups filed a 30-day notice of their intent to sue the Biden administration for refusing to respond to a petition to wind down fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters.
Signed by a coalition of more than 360 progressive advocacy organizations, the January 2022 petition submitted to Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland provides a blueprint to reduce federal oil and gas production by 98% by 2035 using long-dormant provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the National Emergencies Act.
Research published after the petition was filed shows that wealthy countries must end oil and gas production entirely by 2034 to give the world a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C—beyond which the climate emergency's impacts will grow increasingly deadly, particularly for the world's poor who have done the least to cause the crisis.
After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest assessment report last week, Guterres demanded "a quantum leap in climate action," including a prohibition on approving and financing new coal, oil, and gas projects as well as a phaseout of existing fossil fuel production.
H.R. 1 "contains more hidden costs that we can count, including more energy waste, more pollution, and a more dangerous future for our kids and grandkids," said one critic.
As House Republicans prepare to vote on H.R. 1 this week, environmental advocates warned Monday that the sprawling package of fossil fuel-friendly legislation would worsen the climate emergency and biodiversity destruction while saddling U.S. households with higher energy bills.
H.R. 1, misleadingly titled the "Lower Energy Costs Act" and dubbed the "Polluters Over People Act" by opponents, consists of 15 separate bills and a pair of resolutions. As GOP lawmakers made clear at a legislative hearing held last month and through recent amendments, they're seeking to dismantle a wide range of regulations to boost fossil fuel production and exports despite scientists' unequivocal warnings about the need to prohibit new coal, oil, and gas projects to avert the worst effects of the climate crisis.
Environment America explained Monday that if approved, the sweeping proposal introduced earlier this month by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) would, among other things:
"This bill leads America in so many wrong directions at once, it's making me dizzy," said Lisa Frank, executive director of Environment America's Washington, D.C. legislative office.
"Instead of protecting the great American outdoors, it gives our public lands away to oil, mining, and gas companies," Frank pointed out. "Instead of cleaning up toxic pollution, it guarantees more drilling and more spilling, on land and in our oceans. And instead of slowing climate change or helping Americans save energy, it increases our dependence on dirty, expensive fuels."
"It's 2023. We have so many better options available to us, from the sun shining down on our roofs to the wind blowing off our shores and across our plains," she added. "Congress should reject this outdated and unnecessary push to sacrifice our lands, waters, and health in the name of energy production."
"Given how unpopular its provisions are, it's not surprising H.R. 1's authors also seek to limit public input and legal challenges to wrongheaded energy projects."
Included in the package is a resolution "expressing the sense of Congress that the federal government should not impose any restrictions on the export of crude oil or other petroleum products" and a bill that would "repeal all restrictions on the import and export of natural gas."
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)—chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security—argued last month that such measures are necessary because President Joe Biden and Democrats on the panel "have advocated for reinstating the crude oil export ban" that was originally enacted in 1975 and rescinded by congressional Republicans and then-President Barack Obama in 2015.
Last year, the Biden administration suggested—but never followed through on—resurrecting the federal ban on crude exports, a move that progressive advocacy groups urged the White House to make to bring down U.S. fuel prices.
While Duncan insisted that "lifting the export ban... has lowered prices," research demonstrates that precisely the opposite has occurred.
Since 2015, oil and gas production in the Permian Basin has surged while domestic consumption has remained steady, triggering a huge build-out of pipelines and other infrastructure that has turned the U.S. into the world's top exporter of fracked gas—intensifying planet-heating emissions, harming vulnerable Gulf Coast communities already overburdened by pollution, and exacerbating pain at the pump.
Matt Casale of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) said Monday that H.R. 1 "hands taxpayers the bill for expanded fossil fuel extraction and toxic waste clean-up, takes resources away from global warming solutions, and limits Americans' freedom to save energy in their own homes."
"Given how unpopular its provisions are, it's not surprising H.R. 1's authors also seek to limit public input and legal challenges to wrongheaded energy projects," said Casale, who directs PIRG's environmental campaigns.
"Our over-reliance on fossil fuels continues to hold us all over a barrel," he continued. "This bill looks for short-term fixes by doubling down on the energy sources of the past but contains more hidden costs that we can count, including more energy waste, more pollution, and a more dangerous future for our kids and grandkids. To protect ourselves now and in the future, we need to think beyond short-term solutions and take steps to end our fossil fuel dependence once and for all."
"To protect ourselves now and in the future, we need to think beyond short-term solutions and take steps to end our fossil fuel dependence once and for all."
Much to the chagrin of voters who put him in office, Biden has not been an enemy of the fossil fuel industry. His administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018. Just two weeks ago, the White House ignored the scientists it claims to respect and rubber-stamped ConocoPhillips' massive Willow oil project.
Nevertheless, H.R. 1 even includes a resolution expressing disapproval of Biden's 2021 decision to revoke the presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline―part of the GOP's push to blame what they deride as "rush-to-green energy policies" for skyrocketing gas prices, a narrative that obscures Big Oil's profiteering amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, as the GOP's deficit hawks threaten to withhold their support for raising the nation's debt limit unless Biden agrees to devastating social spending cuts, the Congressional Budget Office found that H.R. 1 would increase the federal deficit by $2.4 billion from 2023 to 2033.
Given that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has described H.R. 1 as "dead-on-arrival," it's unlikely the legislation will reach Biden's desk. If it does, however, Biden vowed Monday to veto it.
The GOP's energy package would replace "pro-consumer policies with a thinly veiled license to pollute," the White House said in a statement. "It would raise costs for American families by repealing household energy rebates and rolling back historic investments to increase access to cost-lowering clean energy technologies. Instead of protecting American consumers, it would pad oil and gas company profits—already at record levels—and undercut our public health and environment."
"H.R. 1," the White House added, "would take us backward."