Contrary to some media reports and industry comments, the Inflation Reduction Act does NOT require the Department of the Interior (DOI) to award leases to the high bidder on each Sale 257 tract. The legislation requires DOI to accept the highest valid bid for each tract.
As BOE has previously explained, the 94 carbon sequestration bids were clearly not valid, and leases should not be awarded. These bids accounted for 30.5% of the entire sale in terms of the number of tracts receiving bids. (More on the CCS bids.)
There is also the matter of fair market value. Only 9 of the 214 (non-CCS) tracts received more than one bid and none received more than 2 bids. DOI/BOEM may determine that some of the bids did not pass the fair market value test. Are such bids “valid” under the terms of the IRA legislation? Note that 7 of the 93 high bids submitted at the previous sale (Lease Sale 256, November 2020) were rejected on fair market value grounds. All 7 were single bid tracts.
Lastly, there is the unresolved matter of the decision by Judge Contreras to vacate Sale 257. While the legislation seems to clearly supersede that decision, who knows what might happen next on the litigation front.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 