US to auction off massive Gulf of Mexico oil drilling rights.

The US government is auctioning off an area of the Gulf of Mexico the size of Italy for oil and gas drilling, despite warnings from scientists that fossil fuels must be phased out to avoid catastrophic global heating. The sale, known as lease 259, has the potential to extract over 1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4tn cubic feet of gas over the next 50 years. The move comes less than a month before the 13th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster and despite President Biden's pre-election promise to halt all drilling on federal lands and waters.