Page 22: of Marine News Magazine (April 2021)

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Column

Washington Watch

Ready Your Salad Fork for Biden’s

Offshore Energy Plans

By Jeff Vogel, Partner, Cozen O’Connor’s Transportation & Trade Group

In Antony and Cleopatra,

Shakespeare coined the phrase “salad days” to mean a Record of Decision for Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease youthful time ? lled with unbridled enthusiasm and ideal- Sale 257, scheduled to occur on March 17, 2021. The ism. Indeed, youth, much like salad, is often raw, ? avorful sale would have included approximately 14,594 unleased and most of all… green. Therefore, it is ? tting to think of blocks, totaling 78.2 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico. our present time as the salad days of offshore energy in the BOEM’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas

United States. Let’s dig in. Program for 2017-2022 also included a lease sale in the

Cook Inlet Planning Area, which was scheduled for 2021.

On January 15, BOEM released a draft Environmental

Executive Order appetizers

Impact Statement (EIS) for public comment, analyzing the

On January 27, President Biden took early steps to imple- ment his campaign promise to transition the United States potential environmental impacts of holding the proposed away from fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy, with sale. On February 4, BOEM canceled the draft EIS public the issuance of the “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate comment period, effectively ending the planned sale. It is

Crisis at Home and Abroad.” The Executive Order directs the reasonable to assume that the two other anticipated lease

Secretary of the Interior to (1) pause on entering into new oil sales under BOEM’s OCS Oil and Gas Program, sched- and natural gas leases on public lands or offshore waters, (2) uled to occur in late 2021 and 2022 to lease additional launch a rigorous review of all existing leasing and permitting blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, will not go forward.

Accordingly, the Biden Administration has sent an un- practices related to fossil fuel development on public lands and waters and (3) identify steps that can be taken to double equivocal message—the immediate future of U.S. offshore energy lies in renewables.

renewable energy production from offshore wind by 2030.

The Executive Order’s impact on offshore oil and gas development has been immediate, with the Bureau of

Jones Act main course

Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) effectively canceling While President Biden’s Climate Change Executive Order the ? rst two planned offshore oil lease sales of 2021. On closed the door on oil and gas lease opportunities, it opened

February 12, BOEM announced that it was rescinding the a window on offshore wind. In fact, based on projected de- © shaunwilkinson / Adobe Stock 22 | MN April 2021