By Haley Britzky | Axios
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has announced a proposal for the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history, totaling 76.9 million acres on the Gulf of Mexico.
Why it matters, per Axios’ Amy Harder: Offering lease sales of federal waters and lands is one of the easiest and simplest ways the Trump administration can show it’s supportive of the oil and gas industry.
But, but, but: Persistently low oil prices make new, expensive offshore drilling projects a lot less attractive to the industry than if prices were high. This is more rhetoric than substantive change.