The Biden administration has canceled one of the most high-profile oil and gas lease sales amid skyrocketing gas prices.
The Department of the Interior announced on Wednesday that it is halting the potential to drill for oil in over 1 million acres in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, along with two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Due to lack of industry interest in leasing in the area, the Department will not move forward with the proposed Cook Inlet OCS oil and gas lease sale 258,” a DOI spokesperson told reporters in a statement on Thursday.
“The Department also will not move forward with lease sales 259 and 261 in the Gulf of Mexico region, as a result of delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales,” the spokesperson added.
The move comes as the national average price for a gallon of regular gas has reached an all-time high on Tuesday, according to the AAA.
As of Tuesday, the national average price for regular gas was $4.374 per gallon. The average price for a gallon of diesel fuel also reached $5.540 on Monday, a $0.21 increase from a week ago, $0.48 more than a month ago, and a staggering $2.42 more than a year ago.
Additionally, the average price of normal unleaded was $0.13 higher than it was a week ago, $0.20 higher than it was one month earlier, and $1.36 higher than it was a year ago.
President Joe Biden has taken a few actions to combat inflation and high gas prices such as putting more than one million barrels per day into the economy over the next six months to help address supply interruptions created by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lawmakers have suggested increasing federal leases for oil and gas production, easing restrictions on offshore oil drilling, supporting fracking, and restarting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
However, the president appears to be uninterested in playing hardball, as his priorities lie elsewhere such as lifting former President Donald Trump’s Title 42 border policy and joining with anarchists in threatening Supreme Court justices.
