Over 360 groups call on Biden to phase out oil and gas drilling on federal lands
WASHINGTON— As U.S. oil and gas production is forecasted to expand to record levels by 2023, over 360 climate, tribal, religious and conservation groups petitioned the Biden administration to use its executive authority to phase out oil and gas production on public lands and oceans by 2035.
“The petition provides a framework to manage a decline of oil and gas production to near zero by 2035 through rulemaking, using long-dormant provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the National Emergencies Act,” according to a statement from the coalition. “Without such action, it will become increasingly difficult for the United States to meet its pledge to help avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and its unprecedented social, environmental and economic damage.”
The petition couldn’t have come at a more critical time for the future of oil and gas drilling in the United States. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that U.S. oil production will average 12.4 million barrels per day during 2023, surpassing the record high for domestic crude oil production set in 2019 under the Trump administration.
In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production will increase for nine consecutive quarters, from the fourth quarter of 2021 through 2023. EIA also expects OPEC to increase its crude oil production to 28.9 million barrels per day in 2023, up from an average of 26.3 million barrels per day in 2021.
“We expect global demand for petroleum products to return to and surpass pre-pandemic levels this year, but crude oil production grows at a faster rate in our forecasts,” said EIA Acting Administrator Steve Nalley. “We expect that as crude oil production increases, inventories will begin to replenish and help push prices lower for gasoline, jet fuel, and other products in the short term.”
The agency also forecasts that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories will reach 465 million barrels at the end of 2023, about 11% more than inventories at the end of 2021.
Other key takeaways from the latest STEO include:
- “By September 2023, EIA expects U.S. natural gas production to reach an average of 98 billion cubic feet per day for the first time and then to average 98.2 billion cubic feet per day the second half of 2023.
- “U.S. coal consumption increased by 14% in 2021 in response to growing demand for coal-fired electricity. EIA expects U.S. coal consumption to decrease by 2% in 2022 and remain relatively unchanged in 2023. Despite the decrease in consumption, EIA forecasts that coal production will increase 6% in 2022.”
The entire Short-Term Energy Outlook is available on the EIA website.
The groups say the legal petition submitted today “offers a way to correct the Biden administration’s collapse of climate leadership, including a failing legislative agenda and Biden’s broken campaign promise to end new oil and gas leasing and drilling on public lands and oceans,”
The groups noted that analyses show that climate pollution from the world’s already-producing fossil fuel developments, if fully developed, would push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius, and that avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects.
At November’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, Biden called climate change “an existential threat to human existence,” He pledged to cut U.S. emissions by up to 51% over the next nine years.
“Days later the administration offered 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing, and it plans to offer more than 300,000 acres of public lands leases in March,” the groups wrote.
“The Department of the Interior’s review of the federal oil and gas programs effectively ignored climate, calling instead for adjustments to royalties, bids and bonding,” the groups stated. “Meanwhile, the administration has continued to approve drilling permits onshore at a rate that outpaces the Trump administration, with more than 3,500 permits approved since taking office.”
Oil and gas drilling opponents say federal fossil fuel production causes nearly a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, worsening the climate and extinction crises and “disproportionately harming Black, Brown, Indigenous and low-wealth communities.”
Representatives of groups in the coalition commented on the dire need for the phasing out of oil and gas drilling as climate change-fueled disasters including drought, record high air and ocean temperatures and fires rage across the globe
“At this time in history, according to Anishinaabe prophecies, people have a choice between a well-worn, scorched path and one that is new and green,” said Winona LaDuke, executive director for Honor the Earth. “By all measures of science, spirit and humanity, it is incumbent upon you, President Biden and Secretary Haaland, to deliver on your promises to forge that safer path, ending fossil production on public lands and waters. We worked hard to help you gain office, and you abandoned us on Line 3; here is another significant opportunity to do the right thing. Here at White Earth we are celebrating the end of the fossil era, practicing our sustainable traditions and building the new green economy. We welcome you to come see how it's done.”
“This petition offers a lifeline for our planet and a course correction for the Biden administration’s catastrophic failure of climate leadership,” said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The natural place to start phasing out climate-destroying oil and gas production is on our public lands and oceans, and Biden has the authority to do so. If the U.S. leads, the world will follow. Biden must keep his promise to end federal oil and gas extraction.”
“It’s time to open new doors to a thriving, resilient future for our Western U.S. public lands and communities,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “This petition does just that by winding down a cause of the climate crisis: a federal public lands fossil fuels program that serves the interests of oil and gas CEOs and investors, not the public good. We urge the Biden administration to accept the petition and move forward with swift action to protect the climate and public lands.”
“Last year over 132 million Americans experienced a climate-related disaster, with extreme weather costing over $145 billion in damage and leading to more than 688 lives lost,” said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth. “We cannot fight climate change while ignoring the fact that nearly a quarter of U.S. climate emissions come from fossil fuel extraction on public lands. It's time for President Biden to become the climate leader he claims to be and phase out fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters.”
“This petition simply calls on President Biden to exercise the climate leadership he’s already promised this country,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “We can’t confront the climate crisis unless and until we start keeping fossil fuels in the ground; it’s time for the president to acknowledge and take action on this reality.”
“Fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters must end or it will only intensify the already devastating impacts to our climate and waterways,” said Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance. “Indigenous and underserved communities disproportionately bear the brunt of these impacts that result from long-standing federal policies that have favored industry over public interest. It’s time the Biden administration keeps its promises and uses its position of power to be a climate leader that stems the tide of fossil fuel dependence.”
“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,” said Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club’s Lands, Water, Wildlife program. “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 accepting this petition and phasing out oil and gas production on public lands and oceans."
Newsom Administration has approved nearly 10,000 oil and gas drilling permits since 2019
Meanwhile in California, supposedly the nation’s “green” and “progressive” leader, the Newsom Administration continues to issue thousands of oil and gas drilling permits.
In October 2021, Consumer Watchdog and Fractracker Alliance revealed at www.NewsomWellWatch.org that the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency, CalGEM, had approved a total of 9,728 oil drilling permits from January 1, 2019 until October 1, 2021. In addition, the groups found that the Newsom Administration approved 150 offshore drilling permits in state waters since January 1, 2019.
After spending many hours researching regulatory capture in California for years, I find the expansion of oil and gas drilling in California to be no surprise. The Governor’s Office, the Legislature and the regulatory agencies are captured by Big Oil and Big Gas from top to bottom.
The California Legislature, under intense pressure from the oil and gas industry and beset with an avalanche of fossil fuel money donations, has failed to pass legislation to create health and safety setbacks around oil and gas wells and impose a moratorium on fracking and other extreme oil drilling operations. The legislators even rejected a bill to protect a “marine protected area,” the Vandenburg State Marine Reserve, from offshore drilling.
Few other examples show just how captured California government is than when the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create “marine protected areas” in Southern California from 2009 to 2012 — at the same time that she was lobbying for increased offshore oil drilling in the same region. State officials and a number of “environmental” NGOs gushed that the process overseen by a Big Oil lobbyist was “open, transparent and inclusive” when it was anything but.
Oil, gas and coal extraction uses mines, well pads, gas lines, roads and other infrastructure that destroys habitat for wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Oil spills and other harms from offshore drilling have done immense damage to ocean wildlife and coastal communities. Fracking and mining also pollute watersheds and waterways that provide drinking water to millions of people.
Federal fossil fuels that have not been leased to the industry contain up to 450 billion tons of potential climate pollution; those already leased to industry contain up to 43 billion tons.
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