‘Unprecedented’: Biden admin delays releasing offshore oil and gas leasing plan

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is months late on releasing an updated five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan, which Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin called an “unprecedented” delay in a Wednesday statement.

Manchin, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released the statement saying that the earliest the DOI will release the legally mandated plan for 2023-2028 offshore oil and gas leasing is at the end of this year, which is 18 months late. The one for 2017-2022 expired in June 2022 and this is the first time in American history that there has not been a new plan released before the old one expired, according to Manchin’s statement.

Manchin wrote their DOI is “putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security.” The five-year plan is a system where the government leases tracts of water for private companies to explore and extract oil and gas resources; cutting back can increase energy costs, necessitating reliance on foreign oil.

Manchin wrote following this law is not a matter of choice and cites the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which mandates that the Secretary of Interior “shall prepare and periodically revise, and maintain an oil and gas leasing program.”

“The leasing program shall indicate as precisely as possible the size, timing, and location of leasing activity which will best meet national energy needs for the five-year period following its approval or reapproval,” it says.

In October 2022, House Republicans also went after the Biden administration DOI for not following the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA), failing to hold auctions for oil and gas leases every quarter of President Joe Biden’s term.

“What is even more terrifying is that on top of this disturbing timeline, Interior refuses to confirm if they intend to actually include any lease sales in the final plan, which is an issue I sounded the alarm about when Secretary Haaland appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee on May 19, 2022,” Manchin continued.

Manchin also wrote a reminder to the Biden administration that the Inflation Reduction Act prohibits issuing any leases for renewables unless there are “first reasonable lease sales for oil and gas that actually result in leases being awarded.”

“And I will hold their feet to the fire on this,” Manchin said.

The U.S. Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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