Instead of shutting down drilling on public lands and waters as he promised, President Biden is putting his foot on the pedal and driving us head first into climate catastrophe. Here’s what’s happening:
- The Biden administration in April announced that it would start selling oil and gas leases on 144,000 acres of public lands in nine states. The lease sales will start this June, and more will almost certainly follow.
- The administration is about to announce a new five-year plan for more leasing in millions of acres of ocean waters. Last year, Biden offered more than 80 million acres of offshore waters for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Rather than ending fossil fuel development on public lands, Biden is expected to offer a series of weak “reforms” on federal leasing that will only keep oil and gas companies drilling, when what we really need is an end to fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters once and for all.
Avoiding climate disaster requires us to stop all new oil and gas drilling on U.S. lands and waters now and begin phasing it out entirely. We’re quickly running out of time — and Biden is taking us in exactly the wrong direction.