Last month, the Biden administration held the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico’s history, claiming it was obligated to hold the sale due to a court ruling that reversed Biden’s earlier pause on new drilling permits on public lands in the Gulf. But a memo filed in August, months before the auction, by the Department of Justice, or DOJ, contradicts the administration’s public claims. While the court’s order did lift Biden’s complete pause on new drilling permits, it did not force the government to issue any new ones, the DOJ found, as first noted by the Daily Poster and reported by the Guardian . The November auction was held just four days after the world’s largest climate conference , where President Joe Biden offered a slew of new climate pledges. The administration at the time […]