Industry Disputes Interior’s Rationale for Canceling AK Offshore Lease Sale

Industry groups and some Republicans are disputing the Biden administration’s justification for pulling the plug on the offshore lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, which it said was canceled “due to lack of industry interest.”

Both have argued energy companies and other parties did want the sale to move forward and that the only way to gauge interest in the sale properly would have been to hold it and allow energy companies to offer bids.

The Interior Department confirmed late Wednesday it would not move forward with work on three offshore lease sales, one for acreage in Cook Inlet and two off the Gulf Coast, the last outstanding sales outlined in the current five-year offshore leasing program.

Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said the administration’s reasoning on Cook Inlet was “disingenuous” and pointed to comments she filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December in which she expressed her organization’s support for the sale.

“We certainly said, ‘Hey, we support having a lease sale move forward,’ and as a trade association, we don’t put out any comments unless, obviously, the majority of our members support that,” she told the Washington Examiner. (Read more from “Industry Disputes Interior’s Rationale for Canceling AK Offshore Lease Sale” HERE)

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