The following submission statement was provided by /u/capcaunul:

An enormous swathe of the Gulf of Mexico, spanning an area the size of Italy, was put up for auction on Wednesday for oil and gas drilling, in the latest blow to Joe Biden’s increasingly frayed reputation on dealing with the climate crisis.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/12704gj/us_puts_italysized_chunk_of_gulf_of_mexico_up_for/jebu4mx/