Sen. Joe Manchin bashed the Biden administration Thursday for a delayed oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, stating that the delay was “entirely the administration’s fault.”
During his opening remarks for a Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee hearing, the chairman expressed frustrations on the postponement of Lease Sale 261 – a project that would span nearly 73 million acres across the Gulf of Mexico – which was announced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management moments earlier. Although BOEM cited legal issues to explain the delay, Manchin placed the blame on the Biden administration.
“BOEM is once again blaming the courts for delaying the sale, but the delays are entirely the Administration’s fault,” Manchin said. “The Department of the Interior was so eager to meet the demands of environmental groups to restrict the sale that it bypassed important legal requirements leading to this litigation.”
In a statement issued Thursday morning, BOEM announced that it would be postponing Lease Sale 261 in “response to judicial orders” from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.“Until the court rules, BOEM cannot be certain of which areas or stipulations may be included in the sale notice,” the statement reads. BOEM advised potential bidders to not place offers until the agency is given additional instruction from the courts, and that the agency will hold any bids already received.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, BOEM was ordered to hold the lease sale by the end of September, but it came under litigation after the agency added last-minute environmental restrictions. Industry group American Petroleum Institute, along with the state of Louisiana and U.S. oil company Chevron, sued BOEM after the agency issued its notice of sale, which made six million fewer acres available to oil and gas extraction than previously scheduled, as part of a settlement with environmentalists.