The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), now under the control of new President Joe Biden, has revoked 70 oil and gas drilling permits approved in the waning days of the Trump administration.
The permits were revoked because they had been approved by DOI professional staff rather than political appointees, said Melissa Schwartz, DOI’s newly appointed communications director.
“Approximately 70 permits were approved without proper review following the issuance of a department directive that temporarily elevates review of permitting activities,” Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an email. “Operators have been notified that those [applications] must be resubmitted for appropriate and timely review.”
Revocation Contradicts Assurances
As part of his comprehensive program to fight climate change, Biden signed an Executive Order (EO) placing a moratorium on offering new leases for oil and gas production on federal lands and off-shore on January 27.
At the time the moratorium was issued, Biden and DOI stated the President’s climate change EO’s would not affect existing oil and gas permits.
“It does NOT affect oil and gas drilling and fracking on valid existing leases, either onshore or offshore,” DOI’s said in talking points issued discussing Biden’s climate EOs.
In the light of the Biden administration’s subsequent decision to revoke 70 previously approved permits, DOI’s statement appears to be untrue.
Permit Revocation Cost Jobs
The Biden administration has broken its word that it would not halt existing oil and gas leases, a move that creates mistrust and will cost jobs, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance (WEA), in a press release.
“President Biden’s own Interior Department has contradicted the statements from just Wednesday’s White House climate press conference promising that his leasing ban would not affect existing leases,” Sgamma said. “By revoking 70 drilling permits that have been in the works for months, the Interior Department is demonstrating how President Biden’s ill-advised leasing ban has immediate impacts on existing leases and the Western workers and state budgets that depend on that development.”
“They’re saying reassuring things about how the leasing ban isn’t going to affect existing leases, and then existing leases are affected,” Sgamma told the Washington Times, separately from WEA’s statement. “This ‘pause’ on leasing to analyze the full federal oil and natural gas program is going to morph into a long-term ban and will eventually pull in permitting on existing leases. It’s only a matter of time, and that time was exactly two days.”
WEA points to a Wyoming Energy Authority economic study which estimated Biden’s federal oil and gas leasing ban would reduce eight Western states’ Gross Domestic Product by $33.5 billion during its first four years, costing 32,700 jobs in the very first year, growing more than 58,676 jobs lost annually, and reducing state tax revenues $8.3 billion.
Arguing Biden’s EO has exceeded the administration’s authority and violated federal laws and regulations governing how federal permitting decisions and environmental reviews are supposed to be undertaken, WEA has filed a lawsuit to overturn Biden’s leasing moratorium.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hsburnett@heartland.org) is the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
INTERNET INFO
Timothy J. Considine, Ph.D., “The Fiscal and Economic Impacts of Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Lease Moratorium and Drilling Ban Policies,” Wyoming Energy Authority, December 14, 2020: https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/the-fiscal-and-economic-impacts-of-federal-onshore-oil-and-gas-lease-moratorium-and-drilling-ban-policies