Biden Cancels 80 Million Acre Oil Lease Sale, Putting Louisiana Oil and Gas Industry in Danger
The devastating fallout of the Biden administration’s job-killing rampage continues after he canceled the sale of 80 million acres of Gulf of Mexico oil leases that was scheduled for Wednesday in New Orleans, KLFY-TV in Lafayette, Louisiana, reported Monday.
“It would kill our state. It would kill workers,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, said of the Biden administration’s move. “It would kill jobs, and it would be a terrible thing.”
According to the Moncla and the association, nearly 250,000 Louisiana residents work in the oil and gas industry, and 98,000 of them have offshore jobs.
President Joe Biden banned all new oil and gas leases on public land and waters for 60 days in an executive order on Jan. 20, the day he took office.
He also canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline project, resulting in the loss of as many as 11,000 energy jobs.
This is all part of a sweeping initiative to make climate change the focal point of Biden’s foreign policy and national security programs.
Financial experts say all this does is hurt the U.S. economy, eliminate countless jobs and set the stage for increased energy costs for all Americans, including sky-high gas prices.
Americans should expect the job massacre to continue as Biden continues to swing the ax through the oil and gas industry.
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“Right now I think we’re still pretty much in the holding pattern,” Moncla told KLFY. “It was a 60-day ban, and he was going [to] relook at it.”
But Biden is not expected to ease his “green energy” restrictions, which means the 60-day ban will likely be extended.
Moncla said he hoped Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ efforts to persuade the president to reverse course will be successful.
“Since that time, Governor Edwards has sent him a great letter letting him know exactly what that would mean to Louisiana, all of the economic and finances that come from our offshore work,” Moncla said.
“We’re hoping that Governor Edwards’ letter may have talked some sense into the president and that he won’t extend that 60 days.”
Biden mistakenly believes that blocking oil drilling in the United States will curb oil and gas production worldwide.
“Oil and gas production won’t end,” Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana told KLFY in February. “It will only move overseas, where it’s far less regulated.
“Sending energy production to countries with horrible ecological records is the worst thing we can do for our climate.”
Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said forcing energy jobs to flee overseas to countries that are far less eco-conscious than the U.S. will cause America to become less energy-independent and ultimately hurt the environment more.
Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. was energy independent for the first time since 1957, according to the Institute for Energy Research. Under Biden, the nation is backsliding — without advancing the environmental causes he claims to champion.
“When you depend on these other countries, you lose the jobs, you lose the economic activity, and you result in greater global emissions,” Graves said.
Higgins agreed that Biden’s catastrophic policies and actions are annihilating the once-sizzling U.S. economy.
“The Biden administration wasted no time launching a full-scale assault on oil and gas that will send production overseas and further injure the economy,” he lamented.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
