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President Biden’s administration on Friday opened the door to more offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters over the next five years, setting a course for future U.S. fossil fuel extraction just a day after suffering a great climatic setback in the Supreme Court.
The proposed program for offshore drilling between 2023 and 2028 would prohibit exploration on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. But leaving the possibility of new drilling in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, the announcement doesn’t live up to Biden’s campaign promise to permanently end federal fossil fuel leasing.
The plan moves the country away from its promise to halve global warming pollution by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and help prevent even more intense fires, storms and droughts caused by ‘increase in temperatures. Biden’s climate agenda now depends on whether Democrats can pass a reconciliation package in the Senate that includes sound environmental policies.
“The Supreme Court has just put a lead ball in his ankle in terms of his executive authority,” said John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and former chief adviser to President Barack Obama. “If reconciliation is not achieved, along with the limitations that the Supreme Court has put in place, I think there is no way to achieve the 50 percent reduction by the end of the decade.”
But the offshore plan, along with other events this week, stresses political and legal boundaries in the United States to deal with global warming and poses risks to Democrats, as Americans experience record gasoline prices ahead of the November midterm elections and many the left demands stricter limits on fossil fuels.
On Thursday, the Conservative majority in the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to force electricity suppliers to give up coal combustion. And Biden’s Department of the Interior was forced by a lower court order to lease an area in the western United States this week for drilling into the ground.
The consequences of Global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels as oil and other fossil fuels continue to burn is huge for humanity: if left unchecked, global warming can stop advances in the fight against hunger, poverty and disease around the world. The International Energy Agency has called for halting investment in new fossil fuel supplies to achieve this goal.
“We’re going to slow down the progress we could make otherwise,” said Brian O’Neill, chief scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute and lead author of a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. on impacts. and vulnerability.
The Department of the Interior is considering 10 potential auctions in the Gulf of Mexico and one at Cook Inlet in Alaska. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland stressed that the plan has not been finalized and that her department is considering the option of not having any lease sales. The plan reduces the areas considered for oil and gas leasing from a proposal under President Donald Trump in 2018.
“A program proposal is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” Haaland said in a statement. “From day one, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to the transition to a clean energy economy.
During his candidacy for the White House, Biden vowed to ban new oil and gas drilling in federal lands and waters. “No more drilling on federal land, period,” he said at a campaign event in New Hampshire. “Period, period, period.”
In the Senate, there is growing optimism that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) and Senator Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.), who effectively ended negotiations on an iteration previous of a wide package, they can attack. a deal. In recent days, Democratic leaders have agreed to a proposal to reduce the prices of prescription drugs for the elderly, a policy that would be part of the broader economic package.
Since December, when Manchin blocked Biden’s original Build Back Better proposal, the senator has expressed reservations about the price of any potential package, warning about rising national debt and rising inflation. But with only 50 seats in the Senate, the party needs Manchin’s vote to pass any legislation. As a result, party leaders have given in and cut back on many of their national priorities from the proposed package.
Still, energy policy is still expected to remain a central piece of the potential bill, as Manchin has long called for protecting U.S. energy security and increasing its energy independence from foreign nations. But attendees say negotiations on what the energy and climate components of the deal would look like are still ongoing and the final decisions are likely to be missing in a few weeks.
In a statement Friday, Manchin said he was “glad” the plan had been presented, although he was “disappointed to see that” zero “lease sales are even an option on the table.”
“Our leasing programs are a critical component of American energy security,” Manchin said. “I hope that the administration will finally give the green light to a plan that will expand domestic energy production, done in the cleanest way possible, while taking the necessary steps to put our offshore leasing program back in place. march to give the necessary market signals to provide price relief for all Americans. “
Within the administration, Biden officials said the court’s decision was not a surprise and that they largely hoped to lose the case. But even so, in the hours following the publication of the ruling, senior collaborators remain shocked and demoralized as they take into account the limits of their ability to fight climate change, officials said. Administration officials are beginning to chart the next steps on how to move forward with Biden’s climate agenda, they said, but admitted there is a widespread sense of discouragement in all offices working on climate policy.
Gina McCarthy, Biden’s national climate adviser who drafted the EPA rule at the heart of the Supreme Court case, has stressed in recent days that the administration is focused on finding alternative ways, especially through the Act. of defense production, to continue to meet its climate goals. .
“His use of the Defense Production Act to accelerate all of this national production will really, I think, be one of the ways this president makes it clear to people that he will continue to drive the necessary change,” McCarthy said. he said in a recent interview with The Washington Post, referring to Biden’s drive to make rare earth minerals available for the electric vehicle market.
Biden’s efforts to reduce the drilling of fossil fuels, however, have faced serious legal and political setbacks.
Shortly after taking office, he followed up with an executive order ordering Interior to stop all sales of new leases on public land and water while reviewing how to adjust the program. A Louisiana federal judge last year blocked that break. And Biden faced criticism for renting Manchin, along with many Republicans.
Federal law requires the Department of the Interior to publish a plan for new offshore oil and gas lease sales every five years, but the law gives the administration ample discretion to decide where and whether to allow new perforations.
“It is very important to recognize that the Biden administration has the discretion to propose a five-year lease program that does not provide for any new lease sales,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of land, wildlife and oceans at Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.
Republican lawmakers and oil industry lobbyists have called on the administration to increase U.S. fossil fuel production to help curb record prices at the pump. The national average of a gallon of gasoline hit $ 4.84 on Friday, according to AAA, more than 50 percent this year.
“If the administration is taken seriously when it comes to reducing pump prices, they should expand access to oil and natural gas in federal lands, not kill it,” Senator John Barrasso (Wyo .), the Senate Republican for Energy and Natural. Resources Committee said in a recent statement.
It takes five to ten years to start producing oil from a new offshore lease, according to the Department of the Interior. That means the proposal released Friday will have little immediate impact on current prices at the pump, although it could have important implications for the U.S.’s ability to deliver on its promise to reduce emissions by 2030.
Biden administration officials privately acknowledge that rising fuel prices could jeopardize the Democrats’ chances of Congress in the November midterm elections. They have taken several measures to reduce gas prices that are anathema to climate activists, such as authorizing a historically important launch of the Strategic Oil Reserve.
The western and central part of the Gulf of Mexico is at the heart of the U.S. offshore energy business, where about 1.7 million barrels of oil are extracted daily, mainly off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. they are driven to refineries to be converted. in gasoline, aircraft fuel and plastics. The Gulf accounts for about one-seventh of all domestic crude produced.
Energy companies have worked for years to drill oil and gas far beyond the Gulf, on the east and west coasts. But those hopes faded in 2010 when a platform drilling an offshore exploration well exploded and killed 11 crew members, causing the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster killed hundreds of thousands of birds, uncovered millions of barrels of oil in the ocean, and hampered efforts to expand offshore oil exploration in the United States.
Following the spill, President Barack Obama halted plans to expand drilling in parts of the eastern Gulf near Florida as well as …