"The Biden administration approved the smallest offshore oil program in U.S. history Friday, a move that’s already provoked both outrage from Republicans and disappointment from climate activists who had urged the president to take more dramatic action.

Over the next five years, the Interior Department will hold just three oil auctions of drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico, where most of the nation’s oil and gas production occurs. The agency first announced its plans for the next five years of offshore drilling in September.

That makes the previously scheduled oil sale, taking place next week in the Gulf, the last opportunity for oil companies to buy leases in the nation’s waters until 2025.

The shrunken program is the latest example of the White House’s efforts to curtail the nation’s fossil fuels footprint on public lands and waters, despite mandates to allow some development of the nation’s large stores of crude oil and natural gas."

Heather Richards reports for E&E News December 15, 2023. [2]