Biden Solidifies Anti-Oil Legacy With Flurry of Lame-Duck Attacks on Drilling and Mining
President Joe Biden is spending his final days in office shutting down domestic oil and gas production in actions that will act as roadblocks for the incoming Trump administration and its "drill, baby, drill" agenda while solidifying Biden's legacy as a president hostile to energy producers.
The Biden administration has moved forward with fossil-fuel leasing restrictions, held an oil lease sale in Alaska seemingly designed to garner no industry interest, expanded endangered species protections that block drilling on oil-rich lands across several states, and shut down mining in South Dakota on land with critical mineral reserves vital for energy technologies. And in perhaps its highest-profile move, the administration banned oil leasing across 625 million acres of federal waters—an area that is equivalent in size to a third of the continental United States.
The flurry of activity sets the stage for what figures to be a busy start to President-elect Donald Trump's administration and its aggressive all-of-the-above energy agenda, as well as the Senate's confirmation hearings examining Trump's energy picks. The hearing to consider the nomination of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum (R.) to lead the Department of the Interior, where a bulk of federal energy policy is crafted, is scheduled for Thursday morning. So is the hearing for Trump's pick for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lee Zeldin. Chris Wright's hearing for secretary of energy will take place on Wednesday.
Trump and his nominees have all advocated to roll back Biden's environmental restrictions on drilling and open up more land for leasing. They argue such policies would bolster American energy security and provide an economic boost while softening inflation.
Biden's late burst of anti-energy regulations represents the capstone for an administration that attempted to block all federal oil and gas leasing, canceled previously scheduled lease sales, hiked royalty fees for energy producers, targeted tax incentives for energy exploration, and finalized regulations phasing out fossil fuel power production.
"These decisions are yet another attempt by the Biden administration to undercut the incoming Trump administration and ignore the will of the American people—who decisively voted to reverse this war on American energy," Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon. "This administration has habitually bypassed Congress on natural resource issues that dramatically affect states."
"Senate Republicans will push back using every tool at our disposal. Americans deserve energy policies that unleash resources and create jobs," Lee continued. "Senate Republicans are committed to restoring American energy dominance, safeguarding our energy security, and rolling back Biden's Green New Deal policies that burden families with higher prices and fewer opportunities. I look forward to working with Governor Burgum, President-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Interior, to roll back these harmful actions."
Biden's actions also serve the purpose of creating fodder for environmental activist groups to "galvanize their activists, their donors," and pursue litigation challenging the Trump administration's agenda, according to Daniel Turner, the executive director of energy advocacy group Power the Future. "They are ready for a fight. As soon as Trump designates anything through executive order, as soon as he reverses anything, every one of them will file multiple lawsuits," he said.
"'Drill, baby, drill' is a wonderful catchphrase, and it's something crowds can chant and get excited about, and it's definitely an overall philosophy of energy development," Turner told the Free Beacon. "But the practical matter of 'drill, baby, drill' is cooperation from government and Biden is trying hard to make sure that becomes an impossibility."
"Biden is deliberately setting President Trump up to fail by delaying as much as he can, causing frustration that he was unable to deliver on his promises, and also just to try to provide for negative headlines and negative press, knowing the liberal media will be his best advocate against the Trump administration going forward," Turner continued.
Biden's offshore drilling ban—which he announced last week and which blocks drilling along the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as portions of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Bering Sea in Alaska—was implemented as a withdrawal under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The courts have yet to rule on whether an executive action reversing such a withdrawal, as Trump has promised to pursue, is legal.
That means Trump's expected reversal will likely be met with environmental litigation, which could grind his efforts to restart leasing to a halt.
"This political stunt will cost thousands of hardworking Americans their jobs, drive up energy costs for families, farmers, and industries already struggling with inflation, and make us more reliant on foreign countries for the resources we need," Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R., Calif.), the chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, said in a statement.
"By weaponizing laws to block responsible domestic energy production, this administration is prioritizing radical activist demands over American workers, national security, and economic stability," he said. "Shutting down critical energy projects in the last few days of their administration is simply spiteful to the American people and an attempt to hamstring the next administration."
The Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also announced last month that it would move forward with the smallest five-year oil leasing plan ever put forward. Under the plan, the federal government will hold just three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico through 2029. By comparison, the most recent plans, both formulated under the Obama administration, included more than 10 offshore oil and gas lease sales each.
And the Trump administration sought to hold a total of 47 lease sales across the Atlantic region, the Pacific region, the Gulf of Mexico, and off Alaska's coasts between 2022 and 2027. That plan was never finalized.
In addition, the Biden administration waited until its plan was finalized before beginning a required environmental review for the plan. That could lead to further leasing delays.
"We urge Congress and the incoming administration to reassess the limited schedule of only three lease sales in the current offshore program and take steps to restore our leasing program to bolster investment in U.S. projects," National Ocean Industries Association president Erik Milito said in December.
And last week, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management held an oil and gas lease sale in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as required under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But the agency blocked off much of the resource-rich lands in the area and instead auctioned off land deemed undesirable for drilling. The lease sale, as a result, garnered no industry interest, something celebrated by the administration.
The Interior Department's acting deputy secretary, Laura Daniel-Davis, said the lack of industry interest "exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act." The development, though, was blasted by Alaska's congressional delegation, with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R.) saying the administration's handling of the lease sale was "clearly an attempt to stymie interest from industry."
The Bureau of Land Management took two additional lame-duck actions targeting energy production: It expanded protections for the greater sage-grouse bird species across several states, which blocks resource development on lands rich with oil, and issued a 20-year mining ban across 20,510 acres of South Dakotan land with large critical mineral deposits vital for energy technologies.
"While the Biden-Harris administration spends its final days catering to its radical climate change base, farmers, ranchers and landowners across the west will bear the consequences of its catastrophic failures for years to come," Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R., Wyo.), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said following the greater sage-grouse protections announcement.
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