Biden’s disastrous oil and gas plan could not come at a worse time

This time last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Biden had leased less federal land for oil and gas development in his first 19 months in office than the only president since World War II. It was reported that. According to the report, no president since President Nixon has leased less than 4.4 million acres, with President Reagan holding the record for leasing 48 million acres in 1981 and 1982.

These numbers make the 126,228 federal acres Biden leases even more shocking. Only President Truman leased less land (65,658 acres) from 1945 to 1946, but Truman had an excuse. Federal leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which currently accounts for the bulk of the federal government’s energy production and revenue, did not begin until 1954.

Last month, in a throwback to the days of the Harry Truman administration, Biden announced a legally mandated five-year OCS leasing plan that would all but end the OCS oil and gas program. Following President Trump’s 11 OCS lease sales plans, Mr. Biden proposed only three, one each in 2025, 2027, and 2029.

Biden wanted to reduce sales even further. In fact, he made as much a public statement in August during a softball interview with the Weather Channel, in which he accused the courts of blocking a total halt to oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Federal courts have done just that. A court declared in June 2021 that Biden’s “suspension” of oil and gas leases, both onshore and offshore, was illegal. Last month, another federal court blocked Biden from reducing the acres offered in a future OCS sale following his sweet deal with radical environmentalists. group, and its terms have not been disclosed.

But it wasn’t a federal court that forced the three sales announced by Biden. In a bizarre development, Congressional Democrats included that requirement in the so-called Inflation Control Act as a precondition for Biden’s preferred OCS wind leases.

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Biden’s disastrous OCS oil and gas lease plan could not come at a worse time. In late September, the US Federal Reserve reported that inflation in August reached its highest level in nine months, largely due to soaring gasoline prices. That was before Saudi Arabia and Russia announced they would cut oil production by 1 million barrels per day. Many experts already predict that oil prices could reach $100 per barrel in the near future. So, as some predict a long, harsh winter, more Americans will have to choose between food and fuel.

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The importance of the 1.7 billion acre federal OCS oil and gas program goes without saying, but it bears repeating given the lack of public knowledge on the subject. Currently, OCS accounts for 18% of domestic oil production and 4% of domestic natural gas production. The U.S. Treasury, states, and the Land and Water Conservation Act of 1964 provide billions of dollars annually for outdoor recreation.

More than 300,000 Americans work in the federal OCS oil and gas industry, representing every state in the union. More importantly, the best may be yet to come. The Biden administration has acknowledged that there could be as much as 36.27 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 62.56 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico alone.

The Biden administration’s action would exclude about 6 million acres of potentially oil-rich leased land from future federal lease sales. (Getty Images)

Nevertheless, Biden is close to ending the OCS program. To make matters worse, conditions are being imposed such as further restrictions on land leases, the speed at which supply vehicles can travel from ports to offshore platforms, and environmental groups are suing to curtail oil and gas drilling and production. It is expected that a settlement will be reached. Meanwhile, on his first day in the Oval Office, Biden withdrew the OCS region of the Arctic and Bering Seas.

Most recently, in early September, Biden canceled oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, banned new oil and gas leases in the National Petroleum Refuge in Alaska, and inhabited the final frontier. This greatly disappointed people.

In the Bottom 48, Biden continues to restrict, if not outright ban, onshore federal oil and gas leasing, drilling, and development. At the same time, despite pledges to renewable energy, Biden is shutting down a world-class Minnesota mine that supplies the mineral needs of electric vehicles and leaving Arizona to shut down a world-class mine in Minnesota that supplies electric vehicles’ mineral needs, even though nuclear power supplies 20%. One of the richest uranium deposits in the United States has been declared a no-miner. It accounts for 50% of US electricity and 50% of carbon-free electricity.

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With more world wars on the horizon than most Americans can remember, and with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at its lowest level since 1983, the country is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to domestic energy. But that’s the direction Biden promised to lead us. It is doubtful that anyone will be able to stop him from continuing down that dangerous and deadly path by November 2024.