Biden's resumption of oil and gas leases angers eco-groups and fails to please fossil fuel fools

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Two years ago, during a campaign rally, then-candidate Joe Biden vowed that part of his climate agenda would include no more oil and gas leasing on federal land if he became president. Just two weeks ago, the third and final segment of the latest U.N. climate assessment was published. Like the first two parts, it said the climate crisis is “code red” for humanity and time is short to cut greenhouse gas emissions if the world is going to have a chance of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era. 

Nevertheless, on Friday, the U.S. Department of Interior announced a resumption of oil and gas drilling leases on federal land under a reformed program that levies a 50% increase in royalties companies must pay for what they produce on those leases. Up for auction will be 173 parcels in nine states covering 144,000 acres, 80% less than the area that was being evaluated for possible leasing. On Monday, the department will release its final environmental assessment and lease sales notices. In a statement, Secretary Deb Haaland said:

How we manage our public lands and waters says everything about what we value as a nation. For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands. Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans’ resources for the benefit of all current and future generations.

…

This pragmatic approach focuses leasing on parcels near existing development and infrastructure, such as gathering lines that can help reduce venting and flaring, and will help conserve the resilience of intact public lands and functioning ecosystems. The BLM has prioritized avoiding important wildlife habitat and migration corridors and sensitive cultural areas. As a part of its environmental analysis, the agency disclosed GHG emissions and the social cost of GHG emissions, which provided important context for the agency’s decision-making.

Not good enough the way the industry sees things. Bad news and bad politics, say dozens of environmental advocates. 

Renewed leasing is a broken promise, according to RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote and a member of the Democratic National Committee. She told Daily Kos in an email, “Not only is President Biden’s decision to reopen fossil fuel leasing on public lands incredibly dangerous for the climate, it’s also politically ill advised. Not one drop of oil leased now, which might see its way to market in 2025 or so, is going to lower the price of gasoline consumers are paying at the pump in 2022. And it leaves Biden politically vulnerable to accusations that he broke his campaign promise: ‘No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.'”

Abigail Dillen, president of Earth Justice, issued this statement: 

While DOI’s announcement moves us in the right direction to reform the obsolete federal fossil fuel leasing program, opening up new lands to further drilling is still incompatible with meeting our climate obligations. We are encouraged by a significant reduction in lease sale acreage, implementation of science-based analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, and an increase in the royalty rate for new competitive leases to 18.75%, but proceeding with proposed lease sales puts any hope of slashing pollution by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 further out of reach.

Any new leasing must meaningfully incorporate environmental justice and climate impacts. DOI must ensure our public lands are a key part of the climate solution, rather than continuing to directly contribute to emissions. The best available science already shows that we cannot continue leasing on our public lands and meet President Biden’s stated climate goals. If the Biden administration is serious about addressing climate change, its actions need to start matching its words.

Said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, “While we’re glad to see BLM is finally going to announce a sale, the extreme reduction of acreage by 80%, after a year and a quarter without a single sale, is unwarranted and does nothing to show that the administration takes high energy prices seriously. The sales being considered were the ones that had already been fully analyzed at the end of the Trump Administration and were ready to go before the Biden Administration decided to redo the analysis. Career employees at BLM, not political appointees, had done that analysis and determined it was protective. This administration has decided to make leasing and production a political football, and Americans are paying the price at the pump. … Raising the royalty rate 50% increases the costs of production on federal lands, which already carry a higher cost than nonfederal lands.”

The industry, of course, would go for leases in every national park and every designated wilderness area and every acre of ocean floor if it could. That doesn’t mean it would drill on them all. Currently, about 24 million acres are held under lease onshore and offshore. But the industry has drilled on only about 40% of that. Even if the administration had chosen to open up leasing on all 750,000 acres that were evaluated, it would add just 3% to the acreage the industry already leases. 

In a joint press release with other environmental groups, the Western Environmental Law Center noted that the watchdog organization Accountable.US reported two months ago that Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exxon made more than $75.5 billion in profits in 2021, some of their highest profits in the past decade:

The communities most at risk from new fossil fuel extraction are primarily Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples, people of the global majority and those on the frontlines of fossil fuel industry expansion. These are the same communities that turned out in record numbers to get Biden elected in 2020 and who have since been urging Biden to use his executive authority to fulfill his campaign promise and ban new federal fossil fuel projects.

Heather Richards reports at EnergyWire:

The major public oil and gas companies that drive much of the United States’ activity are holding themselves back with uncharacteristically miserly capital expense plans, returning cash to investors instead of drilling new wells. Officials with some companies say they are also facing bottlenecks for equipment, rigs and labor.

When it comes to public lands and waters, though, oil and gas companies have accused the White House of not truly supporting their industry and aiming to curb production.

Ryan McConnaughey, spokesperson for the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said the Biden administration has a “playbook” for federal development: “delay, distract and deflect.”

How curious that McConnaughey chooses “delay, distract, and deflect.” Those are the same “D” words climatologist Michael Mann includes in his book The Fight to Take Back Our Planet: The New Climate War to describe tactics that have been weaponized by the forces engaged in fighting against effective action to address the climate emergency.

As far as “protection” is concerned, the tally of abandoned oil and gas wells—“orphaned” in industry jargon—on federal land in 88 counties of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming runs to 8,050. Just last week, the Interior Department announced guidance for the states on applying for the first tranche of $775 million in grants to plug and clean up these as well as abandoned wells not on federal land. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year contains $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money for this purpose.

More than a dozen other environmental organizations issued statements and tweets declaring their opposition to renewed leasing. 

Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said, “The fact of the matter is that more drilling won’t solve high gas prices right now—so why is Biden breaking his campaign promise to stop drilling on public lands. This is why young people are doubting the political process altogether. If Biden wants to solve for voter turnout in 2022, he should actually deliver on the things he promised, not move farther away from them. On November 8, 2022 we don’t want to hear anyone asking why young people didn’t vote. Biden is actively turning voters away. If we’re going to combat fascism and win in 2022, he must be a leader and course-correct. This election and our futures depend on it.”

It can take a year—often longer—from the time drilling gets underway on a site until the oil or gas it taps into reaches the market. 

Collin Rees at Oil Change International writes:

In the midst of a climate emergency and a fossil-fueled war that has exposed the dangers of fossil fuel dependency, President Biden’s decision to double down on leasing new public lands for fossil fuel development is a disastrous choice.

There’s no amount of regulation that can change the facts — ‘significantly reformed’ oil and gas lease sales will still result in selling off our public lands for deadly extraction that’s hurting communities and driving the climate crisis. Increasing royalty rates may even result in furthering state and federal reliance on oil and gas leasing revenue, just as the science is clear that we need to be stopping all expansion of fossil fuel extraction.

This is an ugly betrayal of Joe Biden’s campaign promises and his administration’s rhetoric on environmental justice and climate action. Biden is choosing to stand with polluters over people at the expense of frontline communities and the future of the planet. True energy independence means rejecting fossil fuel expansion and ending Big Oil’s greed while rapidly building out renewable energy on public lands and beyond.

Here are a few others responses:

• Kayley Shoup of the New Mexico-based Citizens Caring for the Future: “As frontline community members in the Permian Basin that have been advocating for putting a stop to new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Citizens Caring for the Future finds it extremely disheartening that [Bureau of Land Management] is going forward with these lease sales. Our day-to-day life and health is directly affected by these sales and the subsequent production that comes along with them. It would take a small army to truly enforce regulation here in the Permian, and we know that is the reality in oil and gas regions around the country. We live our lives surrounded by the industry and we understand that in order to take on climate change and make a meaningful dent in emissions the Biden administration must take action that puts a stop to new development.”

• Siqiniq Maupin, executive director of Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic: “As the Interior Department announces that it plans on continuing oil and gas leasing on federal land, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic condemns any further extraction, especially within the Arctic. Our lands are warming at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, causing detrimental impact to the fragile ecosystems that call it home and directly impacting the rest of the world, as well. With conservative climate models predicting that we have less than 30 years to radically change our relationship with oil and gas, the future rests in the United States’ hands. We can no longer commodify our land and water, especially at the rate climate change is occurring. We are nature fighting back.”

• Love Sanchez of Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend: “How much more can Gulf Coast states endure? Most of us weren’t born with a silver spoon to get lawyers all the time to fight these civil laws aka ‘environmental acts,’ or have the luxury of property rights because it was all taken from us so long ago. Now here we are, working class people, simple people, 95% of the time BIPOC people, that just want to protect our land and water. Then, I’m not surprised, we now have the Interior, who decides they want to continue their projects in the Gulf Coast. It’s a very disappointing thing to hear. Fortunately, we will continue to be persistent in protecting these waters.”

• Dan Ritzman, land, water, and wildlife director at the Sierra Club: “Right now, fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters make up a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions at a time scientists are saying we must move urgently to cut emissions by at least half. Not only does it devastate our planet, it’s a handout to Big Oil at the expense of average Americans, who will bear the brunt of its societal, health, and financial ramifications. We urge the Biden administration to take advantage of this historic opportunity to make good on campaign promises, fulfill a global commitment to acting on climate, and serve American communities by phasing out oil and gas production on public lands and oceans.”

• Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that “the Biden administration’s claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership. It’s as if they’re ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods, and megadroughts, and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual. These so-called reforms are 20 years too late and will only continue to fuel the climate emergency. These lease sales should be shelved and the climate-destroying federal fossil fuel programs brought to an end.”

At the COP26 Glasgow summit last November, President Biden said, “The United States will lead by example and share with the world our considerable powers of innovation.” Renewed leasing is a terrible example.