Biden's War on Oil Threatens Energy Goals

The Biden administration's plan to hold a historically-low number of offshore oil and gas lease sales may indirectly threaten its offshore wind energy goals, thanks to a key provision in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).  The Department of the Interior (DOI) issued a congressionally-mandated five-year offshore oil lease plan last month that included just three fossil fuel lease sales through 2029. 

However, the IRA, Democrats' climate and tax bill passed in August 2022, prohibits the DOI from issuing an offshore wind development lease unless the agency has offered at least 60 million acres for offshore oil and gas leasing at some point in the previous 12 months.

"It's constructively a time of moratorium on the issuance of offshore wind leases in those gap years. We recognized that as soon as they came out with the leasing program," Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA), told Fox News Digital in an interview. "We were a bit surprised that they wouldn't do oil and gas lease sales annually because annual sales are needed if they want to have uninterrupted wind lease sales in the offshore."  READ MORE...