The White House has confirmed President Biden will not attend the COP28 summit this year but that Vice President Kamala Harris will be in attendance. This week the Biden administration launched an auction to sell $3.4 million in oil and gas drilling leases. It’s just the first in a series of auctions that will take place as COP28 unfolds. Over the next two weeks, the Interior Department will sell off land exploitation rights in Wyoming, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah.

This comes as data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show the Biden administration has surpassed the Trump administration in crude oil production, bringing U.S. production higher than at any other time in history. The Center for Biological Diversity warns that Biden’s fossil fuel projects “threaten to erase the climate emissions progress from the Inflation Reduction Act.”