By: April Siese

Late Monday afternoon, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held a public comment hearing for the government’s proposed five-year offshore oil and gas lease program. The plan calls for 11 additional lease sales: 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. Though the session was expected to initially last three hours, dozens of participants pushed BOEM officials to extend the comment hearing well past midnight.

The sentiment was nearly unanimous, with countless speakers calling for no new leases, citing climate concerns. Many speakers called on President Joe Biden to uphold his own campaign promise that, had the Interior Department been serious about it, wouldn’t have seen these leases proposed in the first place. Some, like Stone Crab Alliance Founder John Dwyer, even called for the shuttering of existing oil infrastructure. “It is important for our human survival,” Dwyer said.