Despite record high gas prices this week, Joe Biden’s cancellation of three lease sales for oil and gas drilling in Alaska, shows he never passes up an opportunity to enable dictatorships, like Iran and Venezuela, from benefiting from their oil sales while Biden sacks American petroleum jobs at home. From ABC News:

The Biden administration is canceling three oil and gas lease sales scheduled in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, removing millions of acres from possible drilling as U.S. gas prices reach record highs.

The Interior Department announced the decision Wednesday night, citing a lack of industry interest in drilling off the Alaska coast and “conflicting court rulings” that have complicated drilling efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, where the bulk of U.S. offshore drilling takes place.

The Washington Post says that Biden’s action will stop all oil and gas extraction until sometime next year:

It typically takes the government at least six months to a year to finalize a new offshore drilling plan. This means that even if the Interior Department unveils a new proposal in the coming weeks, the soonest energy companies will learn whether they will have access to new leases, and where, is probably early 2023.

In fairness, the lease cancellations may have to do with oil and gas company labor shortages making it hard for them to fulfill the leases. None the less, energy industry leaders were not happy with Biden’s announcement. Again from ABC News:

“Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern — the administration talks about the need for more supply and acts to restrict it,” said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.

“As geopolitical volatility and global energy prices continue to rise, we again urge the administration to end the uncertainty and immediately act on a new five-year program for federal offshore leasing,” he said.

It was a year ago that the United States was reliant on our own energy production. This is one of many fossil fuel projects Biden has shut down or obstructed with regulatory hurdles that even the media tries to deny are the reason for higher gas prices at the pump. Biden’s energy policy obviously a cynical ploy to appease his mean green base who have made destroying America their primary goal.