Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

16. Department of the Interior · Notable

Hold offshore lease sales to the maximum under the 2023–2028 program

Partially done

523 16. Department of the Interior

“Conduct offshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent permitted under the 2023–2028 lease program, with the possibility to move forward under a previously studied but unselected plan alternative.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    Offshore leasing resumed at a rate well beyond what the program scheduled — but under new statutory authority rather than under the program itself. §50102 of P.L. 119-21 mandates thirty Gulf sales and six in Cook Inlet, and BOEM has since held Gulf of America Big Beautiful Gulf Lease Sales 1 (bids opened 2025-12-10), 2 and 3 and Cook Inlet Lease Sale 1, alongside Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 from the earlier program. Meanwhile SO 3445 announces Interior's intent to terminate the 2024–2029 program rather than exhaust it, and Lease Sale 262 was never finalized. Achieved by other means: more sales than the named program permitted, none of them held under it.

  2. Attempted

    BOEM published the Proposed Notice of Sale for Gulf of America Lease Sale 262, the remaining sale scheduled under the 2024–2029 National Program. A step; no Final Notice of Sale for 262 was published in the window.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

The Mandate’s “2023–2028 lease program” is the program that became the 2024–2029 (10th) National OCS Program, approved in December 2023 with three Gulf sales and none in Alaska. Its last sale, Lease Sale 262, reached a Proposed Notice of Sale in June 2025 and no Final Notice of Sale; the sales that have been held since are held under §50102 of P.L. 119-21 instead. #1466 owns the OCSLA-amendment trail and #1465 the new five-year plan.

  • Scan triage 2026-10-12 (fourteenth run): BOEM published Proposed Notices of Sale for One Big Beautiful Bill Act Lease Sale 4 in the Gulf (FR 2026-20767, 2026-10-09) and Cook Inlet OBBBA Lease Sale 2 (2026-10-13). These are the statutory schedule continuing, with sales still under §50102 rather than under the program the Quote names. A proposed notice is not a sale, and the rung holds. The next partial event, if one is wanted, is a sale’s bid opening.
Action
expand
Object
2023–2028 offshore oil and gas lease program
ID
1464