Environmentalists are fuming after the Department of the Interior auctioned leases to drill for oil in an 80-million-acre section of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday morning
“This morning was met with extreme disappointment, depleted hope, and shattered trust,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, in a statement. “The Biden administration has opted to move forward with relinquishing all remaining parcels of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas interests. The decision is based on unlawful analysis that ignores climate change and the serious environmental injustice posed to the Gulf’s frontline communities.
an executive order issuing a “temporary pause” on oil and gas lease auctions on federal land and water. “There are three things [the administration] could have done that they have just chosen not to do, that could get them out of” holding the auction, Drew Caputo, a vice president of litigation at Earthjustice, told Yahoo News.
He argues the Department of Justice could have filed an immediate appeal and sought a stay from the appeals court of the district court order. “They didn’t even try to do that,” Caputo said. “They sat around for two months after the judge ruled, and then they filed an appeal. But they never sought to accelerate or expedite that appeal and instead went all-in on the lease sale.
“The Biden administration could have used the same withdrawal authority under OCSLA to withdraw some or all of the waters,” Caputo said. “They didn’t do that either.”Asked about these arguments, the Department of the Interior sent a statement, attributed to spokesperson Melissa Schwartz, that began: “The Department is complying with the U.S. District Court’s decision regarding Sale 257 while the government appeals the decision.
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