Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about what happens if they have an oil lease auction and nobody comes.

Or what it means that even oil companies don't want to drill baby drill in the Arctic.

The period to submit bids to obtain leases to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge, often pronounced ANWR, ended. Not a single company entered a bid. Why is the Biden

administration even offering these leases? Because of a Trump-era bill that went through Congress, the 2017 Tax Act

required two lease sales within seven years. Trump acted like companies were desperate to drill in the

wildlife refuge. According to the Department of Interior, quote, the first sale held by the previous administration similarly demonstrated low interest,

yielding a total of 14.4 million in high bids on 11 tracks.

Congress included the two lease sales in the Tax Act on the grounds that they would generate

approximately $2 billion in revenue over 10 years.

$14 million is a far cry from $2 billion.

But wait, there's more.

The department's release also says, quote,

of the nine leases sold during the previous administration's sale,

the two held by oil companies were canceled and refunded at the request of the leases.

And the remaining seven held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority were cancelled by Secretary of

the Interior, Holland, due to the multiple legal deficiencies in the underlying record.

There are currently no existing leases in the coastal plain.

Despite the dismal results from his attempt,

Trump was still pushing it during his campaign.

He told Elon Musk, quote,

...