The United States D.C. District Court has revoked leases for over 80 million acres of drillable land in the Gulf of Mexico regions. The leases, which were given out via the Biden Administration, marked the record books as the biggest oil lease in U.S. history, NPR writes. On January 28, Judge Rudolph Contreras formally invalidated the leases, leaving the 80 million acres untouchable for the time being. 1.7 million of those acres were already purchased by anonymous bidders, who will not be permitted to drill at the purchased sites.
This invalidation comes as a win for environmentalists and critics of Biden, who reportedly first issued the leases just days after pledging to stray away from fossil fuels. According to the court documents, the ruling was based on the argument that the administration did not research the climate effects of the leases extensively enough. As a result, before the land goes up for sale again, the U.S. Department of the Interior must first analyze the output of greenhouse gas emissions from drilling in the leased areas. The court also ruled that the previous greenhouse gas emission analysis done by Former President Trump was outdated and thus no longer appropriate.
The current White House is not entirely to blame for the auction. The lease was scheduled under the Trump administration, and after multiple lawsuits, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that existing auctions must be finished. In fear of facing the court, the Biden administration complied and held the auction, despite having possible options against the court ruling.
The lawsuit was headed by Earthjustice, which advocated for the U.S. to dive deeper into regulating and researching greenhouse gas emissions. Brettny Hardy, an attorney for Earthjustice, sees the ruling as a victory.
“Once these leases are issued, there’s development that’s potentially locked in for decades to come that is going to hurt our global climate,” Hardy stated. Other organizations joined the lawsuit, such as Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, and Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice notes.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) called the ruling “disappointing.”
“Offshore energy development plays a critical role in strengthening our nation’s economy and energy security,” a spokesperson for the API said. Companies in the auction also fear that their anonymity could be lost, opening up crucial information to competitors, states Lisa Friedman for the New York Times.
Research by the U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded that as of 2016, offshore drilling accounted for 30% of the global crude oil production. Much of that drilling occurs in the Gulf of Mexico.