The Interior Department of the United States government is scheduled to auction off more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday for oil and gas leasing, the largest U.S. lease sale ever. The sale comes just days after President Biden pledged at COP26 to reduce climate emissions.
“The Biden administration is lighting the fuse on a massive carbon bomb in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous, hypocritical action in the aftermath of the climate summit,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This will inevitably lead to more catastrophic oil spills, more toxic climate pollution, and more suffering for communities and wildlife along the Gulf Coast. Biden has the authority to stop this, but instead he’s casting his lot in with the fossil fuel industry and worsening the climate emergency.”
On Aug. 31, the day the lease sale was announced, the Center and other environmental and Gulf groups sued the administration over its decision to hold the sale.
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https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/biden-administration-to-lease-out-80-million-acres-in-gulf-of-mexico-for-oil-days-after-climate-summit-2021-11-16/