Biden Scraps Offshore Oil Auctions in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico

The Biden administration is scrapping planned auctions of drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Cook Inlet -- a move that deepens uncertainty over the future of the US government's offshore oil leasing program.

The Interior Department said in an emailed statement Wednesday it "will not move forward" with two Gulf lease auctions that were planned under former President Barack Obama "as a result of delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed sales."

A separate sale of tracts in Alaska's Cook Inlet, originally slated to occur last year, also is being canceled "due to lack of industry interest in leasing the area," the department said.

Republicans and some moderate Democrats have urged the administration to accelerate leasing as countries wean off Russian oil and gas. In a letter to Biden last week, Democratic representatives Vicente Gonzalez, Sylvia Garcia, Henry Cuellar and Lizzie Fletcher said the US should publish a new five-year plan with frequent offshore lease sales as a way to "help bring millions of additional barrels of US oil to market."