After President Biden — along with a good portion of his cabinet — returned from a U.N. climate summit in Scotland, his administration proceeded with the sale of oil drilling rights covering more than 100,000 square miles — some eight million acres — in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday in the latest instance of Biden's pandering to the woke crowd not working in the real world.
As The Associated Press reported from Scotland, Biden bowed before climate change fanatics as he told world leaders that "the United States and other energy-gulping developed nations bear much of the responsibility for climate change, and said actions taken this decade to contain global warming will be decisive in preventing future generations from suffering."
But back in the United States — and apparently reality — Biden's lofty but delusional talk of a future without fossil fuels just doesn't add up.
Wednesday's auction for rights to drill in federal waters in the Gulf is something Biden fought against in court, apparently trying to keep his word, but it was a battle he ultimately lost to Republican attorneys general who sued to allow the auction to take place.
The oil rights being auctioned off by Biden's Interior Department will allow some 1.1 billion barrels of crude oil to be produced, also according to AP. It's another broken campaign promise for Biden, AP's report points out, who wooed progressives by promising them he would prevent federal lands from being used for new fossil fuel projects:
Biden campaigned on promises to curb fossil fuels from public lands and waters, which including coal account for about a quarter of U.S. carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
During the Democratic presidential primary, Biden said in a debate that his position would be "no more subsidies for [the] fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period."
As the Green New Deal crowd is learning along with the rest of the country, what Biden said on the trail and what he does in office are often two very different things.
Even NBC News called Biden out for promising one thing and doing another:
The Biden admin. is hosting an auction to give oil companies drilling rights to 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico.
— Top Story with Tom Llamas (@TopStoryNBC) November 17, 2021
This is despite Pres. Biden’s 2020 campaign promise: “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore.”@VaughnHillyard explains. pic.twitter.com/UcHbysXNYk
The Guardian didn't blunt its criticism of the Biden administration, either:
The enormous size of the lease sale – covering an area that is twice as large as Florida – is a blunt repudiation of Biden’s previous promise to shut down new drilling on public lands and waters. It has stunned environmentalists who argue the auction punctures the US’s shaky credibility on the climate crisis and will make it harder to avert catastrophic impacts from soaring global heating.
Those poor stunned environmentalists? The joke is really on other nations that attended the climate summit in Glasgow and agreed to stunt their own economies based on Biden's "leadership" on the issue only to find him selling oil rights to the energy companies demonized by climate activists.
Radical leftist climate organization Earth Justice put Biden on blast:
BREAKING: Today the Biden administration bowed to industry pressure and offered up 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for lease to Big Oil. We will continue fighting in court on behalf of Gulf communities and our future to stop this lease sale. https://t.co/Cohy1wJdkA
— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) November 17, 2021
It also seems Friends of the Earth are now no friend to Biden:
Biden came back from a climate change conference to open 80+ million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to new oil drilling.
— Friends of the Earth (Action) (@foe_us) November 16, 2021
Yesterday we visited @Interior to hold this oily administration accountable.#GulfSouth4GND pic.twitter.com/XWqTY59RFj