- President Biden’s Interior Department oversaw one of the biggest oil and gas lease sales in American history just days after telling world leaders that he’s committed to slowing climate change with “action, and not words.”
- Eighty million acres in the Gulf of Mexico was on the auction block on Wednesday, and environmental organizations argue there’s much more Biden could have done to halt the sale.
- “It simply does not make sense to put oil company profits over the future of an inhabitable planet,” said Christy Goldfuss from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Nathan Rott from NPR writes:
“Days after President Joe Biden told world leaders that his administration is committed to slowing climate change with “action, and not words,” his Interior Department oversaw one of the largest oil and gas lease sales in American history.
Eighty million acres of the Gulf of Mexico — an area twice the size of Florida — was put on the auction block on Wednesday. Energy companies, led by Exxon Mobil Corp., only placed bids on a total of 1.7 million acres, and it’s unclear how much of that will later be developed.
Environmentalists decried the lease auction. “This is an administration that campaigned on dealing with climate change,” said Drew Caputo, an attorney at Earthjustice, which sued to stop the sale. “That’s why this lease sale is so disappointing, because it is the most significant action that the administration will have taken on oil and gas development and it goes in the wrong direction.”
The Biden administration argues that it didn’t have much of an option. Shortly after taking office, Biden announced a temporary pause on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, pending a review of their impact on the worsening climate crisis. Roughly a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuel extraction from public lands…”
See full story here.
Categories: Government, International, Politics
Economic Left 
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