Silver State Times

The Biden administration continues to limit domestic energy production as prices increase. The Interior Department has just cancelled planned oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, a move officials claim is adding to the country's high energy costs. 

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is opposed to federal oil drilling, as she recently voted against a bill that would increase production.

"The domestic actions that restrict oil production worsen the inflation problems and the budget squeezes that too many families are facing across the states," Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow in Business and Economics of Pacific Research Institute, told the Silver State Times recently. "The expectation of greater supply by allowing more oil production would help reduce gas prices quickly and incentivize greater supply, which could help offset some of the inflationary pressures."

Administration officials defended their policy.

“Production is essentially higher than it’s been in a couple decades,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said during a recent congressional hearing. “On the federal lands, we’re doing what we need to do and we’re following the law and making sure that we are moving those issues forward.”

President Joe Biden signed an executive order freezing all new oil and gas leasing on federal lands shortly after taking office last January, a recent news report from The Hill said. He has since stopped a number of oil leases. The administration has now halted oil and gas lease sales in Alaska's Cook Inlet and in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The lease in Alaska would have spread over greater than 1 million acres, The Hill report said. The administration's decision comes at a time when Biden’s approval ratings from Americans have declined, in particular on economic issues. Congressional Republicans have also continued to criticize the administration’s energy moves once average nationwide gas prices soared to an all-time high recently.

As of May 12, the national gas price average was $4.42 per gallon, a 7.8% increase from a month earlier when the average was $4.10 per gallon. On March 31, the day of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve release, gas was $4.22 per gallon, 20 cents lower than on May 12.

In Nevada, the average price of gas on May 12 was the third-highest in the nation at $5.12 per gallon.

Recent Energy Information Administration (EIA) data demonstrated that total oil production in the U.S. has been on the decline for three consecutive months, going against administration officials' claims that domestic production is at historic highs.

On May 4, Nevada's Cortez Masto was among 44 Senate Democrats who voted against Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) proposal to mandate the immediate start of a new 5-year federal offshore oil and gas leasing plan. The proposal, which is intended to lower energy costs in the U.S., would have ensured lease sales for oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska. Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen also voted to stop the plan.