American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2022 - 39

Administration Continues Obstruction
Federal Leasing
By Del Torkelson
WASHINGTON-President Biden's
approach to oil and natural gas leasing
on federal lands and waters-specifically,
the lack thereof-was a prominent subject
in May after a couple of executive branch
decisions. The first decision occurred on
May 11, when the U.S. Department of
the Interior canceled offshore lease sales
in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Cook
Inlet. The second development occurred
during a May 19 U.S. Senate hearing,
during which Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
confirmed that her department intended
to issue a five-year leasing plan
on schedule, but also was not ready to
say the department would issue specific
leases or authorize any new activity.
The administration's announcements
have drawn praise from oil and gas opponents,
who laud them as measures to
combat greenhouse gas emissions. In one
example, press accounts cite Kristen Monsell,
oceans legal director at the Center
for Biological Diversity, applauding the
lease cancellations even as she called on
Biden to go further. " To save imperiled
marine life and protect coastal communities
and our climate from pollution, we
need to end new leasing and phase out
existing drilling, " she is quoted.
Oil and gas industry representatives
and numerous elected officials, however,
have blasted the decisions. Louisiana Oil
& Gas Association President Mike Moncla
describes nixing the Gulf lease sales as
unfortunately consistent with the administration's
other energy moves. " The cancelling
of the sale of leases 259 and 261
in the Gulf of Mexico puts a beautiful exclamation
point on the absolute devastation
that this administration has caused to our
industry, and to our nation, " he laments.
Obstructing production seems especially
ill-advised today, Moncla adds.
" We are suffering from a war overseas.
Prices at the pump are at an all-time
high, " he observes. " The only way to
bring those prices down is to increase
domestic energy production. It is nothing
short of hypocritical that the Biden administration
bans Russian energy imports,
while at the same time doing everything
it can to stop any and all future production
in the Gulf of Mexico. "
Cancelled Leases
DOI attributed its decision to drop
Lease Sale 258 in the Alaska Region's
Cook Inlet, which was part of the 20172022
National Outer Continental Shelf
Oil and Gas Leasing Program, to " lack
of industry interest in leasing in the area. "
Media reports quote a DOI spokesperson
saying, " The department also will not
move forward with lease sales 259 and
261 in the Gulf of Mexico region, as a
result of delays due to factors including
conflicting court rulings that impacted
work on these proposed lease sales. "
The administration's announcement
comes a few months after a federal court
decision earlier this year invalidated 1.7
million acres of federal oil and gas leases.
The ruling, which nullified the largest
offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S.
history, faulted DOI for relying on inadequate
modeling to assess the leases'
contribution to GHG emissions (AOGR,
Feb. 2022, pg. 14).
DOI's insistence that oil and gas producers
were not interested in the Cook
Inlet sale should be understood in a context
of impending litigation and regulatory uncertainty,
suggests Steve Milloy, a former
member of the Trump-Pence transition
team and founder of junkscience.com. " In
Alaska, the problem was that the greens
scared off virtually everyone, " Milloy is
quoted in media reports. " It's expensive
to explore and drill, and the greens made
it pretty clear they were going to make it
even more difficult. "
Marty Durbin, president of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy
Institute, predicts that limiting domestic
production will increase imports from
countries with more lax pollution standards.
" This action . . . won't advance climate
goals, since U.S. oil and natural gas would
be displacing overseas fuels that typically
have higher emissions, " he says. " We can
both increase energy security at home
and for our allies while also combatting
climate change, but not if the Biden administration
keeps doubling down on
blocking domestic energy production. "
Recalling statements Biden made about
ending fossil fuels during his campaign
for the presidency, a New York Post editorial
suggests Biden should stop claiming
he is striving to suppress consumer energy
prices and simply tout them as a sacrifice
to help arrest global climate change. " If
he were honest, Biden would admit his
policies are driving up energy costs and
argue that it's necessary to fight climate
change, " the Post says. " Instead, he pretends
'I'm doing everything . . . to bring
down the prices'-while actually moving
aggressively to keep his vow to end the
use of fossil fuels. "
David Blackmon argues in Forbes that
Biden accidentally committed the political
gaffe of telling the truth, when the president
predicted high energy prices would lead
the world to rely less on fossil fuels during
a late-May press conference that followed
a meeting with Japanese Prime Minster
Fumio Kishida. " President Biden took
some heat . . . for saying the quiet part of
the energy transition out loud, " Blackmon
writes. " It was a mistake since, although
running prices for fossil-fuel-generated energy
higher has always been part of the
plan for Biden's Green New Deal energy
policies, admitting it aloud in public was
not supposed to be part of the messaging. "
Ultimately, says National Ocean Industries
President Erik Milito, the lease
cancellations aligns with the administration's
promises. " This decision is not
surprising at all, " he remarks. " As early
as March 2020, then-candidate Biden
made it clear he would stop federal oil
and gas development if elected. This was
followed by additional formal campaign
declarations, a pause on federal leasing
that continues today, and continued statements
by the administration that it is
their intent to stop additional federal oil
and gas development. "
Empty Plan?
News about Interior's ambiguous intentions
for its next offshore leasing plan
surfaced during Haaland's testimony before
the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources. She promised
that, despite implementation delays she
blamed on the Trump administration,
DOI would release a proposed five-year
program by June 30. A DOI statement
on the matter notes that the existing program
is scheduled to expire that day, but
adds that a proposed program is not a decision
to issue specific leases or to authorize
any drilling or development.
" The previous administration stopped
work on the new five-year plan in 2018,
so there has been a lot to do to catch up, "
Haaland testified. " Varying, conflicting
litigation has also been a factor. As we
take this next step, we will follow the science
and the law, as we always do. This
requires a robust and transparent review
process that includes input from states,
the public and tribes to inform our decision-making.
We take this responsibility
JUNE 2022 39
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2022

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