The Biden admin will not proceed with planned oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet, the Department of Interior announced Wednesday night.
A spokesperson for the department confirmed the Cook Inlet lease sale would not proceed due to “insufficient industry interest”.
The decision halts the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, which comes as gas prices are hitting painfully high prices.
Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said, “will not move forward” with a roughly 1 million-acre sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet “due to lack of industry interest in leasing in the area.”
The planned sale of two leases, lease 259 and lease 261, in the Gulf of Mexico will not proceed due to contradictory court rulings on the leases, the spokesperson confirmed to The Hill.
The Alaska lease would have covered more than 1 million acres.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management previously canceled lease sales in the area in 2006, 2008, and 2010, also citing a lack of interest from the industry at the time.
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