The Biden administration is scrapping planned auctions of drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet. The Biden administration is scrapping planned auctions of drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet — a move that deepens uncertainty over the future of the US government’s offshore oil leasing program. The Interior Department said in an emailed statement it “will not move forward” with two Gulf lease auctions that were planned under former President Barack Obama “as a result of delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed sales.” A separate sale of tracts in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, originally slated to occur last year, also is being canceled “due to lack of industry interest in leasing the area,” the department said. The decisions come amid surging gasoline prices and strained oil supplies that have prompted Biden administration officials […]