Oil firms and green groups challenge Biden plan for offshore drilling leases

Dueling petitions raise concerns over interior department’s five-year plans to offer drilling leases in Gulf of Mexico

Oil and gas companies and environmental groups on Monday filed dueling legal challenges to the Biden administration’s five-year plan to offer drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

The petitions to a US appeals court come four months after the interior department unveiled a congressionally-mandated plan for offshore leasing that included just three sales, the lowest since the government began publishing the schedules in 1980.