The White House announced its first offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, to open up those waters for companies to bid construct wind energy facilities, after curbing gas and oil company drilling.
The Biden administration said that this sale is an opportunity to contribute to America’s transition to “clean energy.”
The Feb. 22 announcement by the Department of the Interior to build windfarms in the Gulf, comes as the number of offshore oil and gas leases granted since Biden took office have shrunk to historic lows.
President Joe Biden has only leased 1.7 million offshore acres for oil and gas so far since January 2021, less than any president since President Richard Nixon, and about a third seen in the first two years of President Barack Obama’s term, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API).The data shows that Biden had kept his promise to green advocates that he would shut down new oil and gas drilling, after he stated during his campaign that there would be “no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore.”
