Biden‘breaking campaign promises’ with lease sales, drilling permits

Joy Ufford, jufford@pinedaleroundup.com
Posted 6/30/22

A climate-conservation coalition announced Wednesday, June 29, that it filed a civil lawsuit in Washington, D.C., against the Biden administration’s plan to resume the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas lease sales after lifting its moratorium. Challenges against that moratorium have come mainly from the oil and gas industry, which pointed out that the BLM is required by Congress to offer lease sales and say increased production will alleviate shocking prices at the gas pump.

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Biden‘breaking campaign promises’ with lease sales, drilling permits

Posted

SUBLETTE COUNTY – A climate-conservation coalition announced Wednesday, June 29, that it filed a civil lawsuit in Washington, D.C., against the Biden administration’s plan to resume the Bureau of Land Management’s oil and gas lease sales after lifting its moratorium.

Challenges against that moratorium have come mainly from the oil and gas industry, which pointed out that the BLM is required by Congress to offer lease sales and say increased production will alleviate shocking prices at the gas pump.

Against DOI, BLM

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Dakota Resource Council and other western conservation groups in D.C.’s U.S. District Court.

The lawsuit lists as defendants the U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, U.S. BLM and BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning and seeks an injunction against their approval of 173 lease parcels across eight western states.

The lawsuit was filed on the same morning that the DOI and BLM announced approvals of parcel sales in Montana, North Dakota, Nevada and Utah.

“These lease auctions will be immediately followed by sales in Colorado New Mexico and Oklahoma and Wyoming,” said Matthew Koehler in the coalition’s announcement. “Collectively, these sales will open more than 140,000 acres of public land to fossil-fuel production.”

Violate policy acts

The complaint states that the DOI and BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Management Policy Act and failed to properly consider “global climate change (as) the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced.”

By approving further soil and gas lease sales, the federal agencies are allowing more greenhouse gas emissions that cause “irreparable damage to virtually every ecosystem on the plant,” the suit says.

The federal agencies know this, it says, and “acknowledge” oil and gas production contributes to the immediate climate crisis.

“… (T)he lease sales at issue here will collectively cause billions of dollars in social and environmental harm to people and the planet,” it continues. But they scheduled the lease sales after issuing seven environmental assessments each with a findings of no significant impact or FONSI, it says.

Earlier in June, the groups earlier this month filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s 3,525 drilling permit approvals in the Permian and Powder River basins, their announcement says.

“The Biden administration approved 34 percent more drilling during its first year than the Trump administration,” according to CBD’s federal data analysis.

Biden – and Gov. Mark Gordon – have promised to address the high prices of gas and oil.

Arguments

These statements were included in the coalition’s June 29 announcement:

“In spite of this administration’s climate commitments, the Department of Interior is choosing to resume oil and gas leasing. The very least the BLM could do is acknowledge the connected nature of these six lease sales and their collective impact on federal lands and the earth’s climate. Its failure to do so is an attempt to water down the climate effects of the decision to continue leasing, and is a clear abdication of BLM’s responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act.”

– Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney, Western Environmental Law Center

“We’re out of time and our climate can’t afford any new fossil fuel developments. By leasing more of our public lands to oil companies, President Biden is breaking campaign promises and falling dangerously short of the global leadership required to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

– Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity

“While people are getting gouged at the pump by greedy oil and gas companies, the Biden administration is bending over backward to give more breaks to the industry and sell public lands for fracking. This isn’t just undermining our climate, it’s undermining our nation’s ability to transition away from costly fossil fuels and toward cleaner, more affordable energy.”

– Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director, WildEarth Guardians.

“The public is absorbing substantial economic and ecological costs from fossil-fuel-driven climate disruption, including massive fires, biodiversity loss, superstorms and extended drought. Federal minerals belong to the public and should be managed in the public interest, which clearly dictates keeping federal fossil fuel deposits safely buried underground.”

– Erik Molvar, executive director, Western Watersheds Project

For more

There is not yet any federal response to the June 28 “Complaint for Declaratory Judgement and Injunctive Relief, which is filed as Case 1:22-cv-01853 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.