Re-posting:
A federal oil lease sale in North Dakota expected to occur during the first quarter of this year will not take place, and the state's lawsuit over the matter looks to be heating up again.
The federal government has missed the mid-February deadline to publish a notice to hold a lease sale this quarter, the U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing last week in North Dakota's federal leasing suit.
The holdup has to do with a recent court ruling in Louisiana that blocked the government from using calculations it had made of the social costs of greenhouse gases.
Those calculations are part of its environmental analysis in federal lease sales.
The federal Bureau of Land Management had planned a lease sale this quarter with 29 parcels of federal minerals up for grabs in North Dakota and Montana.
Oil companies seeking to develop federal minerals need to secure a lease and, subsequently, a permit to drill.
President Joe Biden halted federal leasing upon taking office last year, launching a review of the federal program to examine potential reforms. North Dakota and a number of other oil- and gas-rich states filed lawsuits to try to force leasing to continue. A ruling stemming from one of those suits last summer ordered the government to resume lease sales nationwide.
Pleas for more drilling: Meanwhile, the president is asking US producers to drill more.
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