When President Joe Biden spoke about fossil fuels during a Democratic presidential debate in March 2020, he promised to take on the fossil fuel industry and rapidly transition the nation away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

No more subsidies for [the] fossil fuel industry, Biden said. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period. Ends.

Environmental advocates say Biden is breaking that pledge now as the administration prepares to hold the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history on Nov. 17.

The sale comes on the heels of COP26, the United Nations climate talks in Scotland, where diplomats are on track to strike a deal that falls far short of what scientists say is necessary to avert catastrophic warming. The Department of the Interior will offer up more than 80 million acres an area larger than the state of New Mexico of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling. It is bigger than any lease sale conducted under President Donald Trumps fossil-fuel-friendly administration, and Interior estimates it will lead to the production of an additional 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over several decades.

The administration argues its hands are tied, following the June decision by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana to strike down Bidens executive order temporarily pausing new oil and gas leases across federal lands and waters.

The administration has made clear that it disagrees with the ruling and the Department of Justice has appealed it, but the government must comply with it in the meantime, White House spokesman Vedant Patel said in an email statement, noting that Interior previously canceled the pending lease sale.

The injunction stemmed from a lawsuit brought by 14 Republican attorneys against the administration. The judges opinion relied in part on a study of the leasing pauses potential economic impacts, which an industry trade group helped shape and that multiple independent researchers dismissed.

Legal experts HuffPost interviewed said Biden and his team have some avenues to scale back, delay or cancel the sale, but that theyd come with legal and political risks the administration may be unwilling to take.