Guest “you can’t fix stupid” by David Middleton
Biden Hits ‘Pause’ On Oil And Gas Leasing On Public Lands And Waters
January 27, 2021
NATHAN ROTT, SCOTT DETROW, ALANA WISEIn an effort to slow the nation’s contribution to climate change, President Biden has signed an executive order to begin halting oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters.
The much-anticipated move is one of several executive actions the president took on Wednesday to address the worsening climate crisis and the broader decline of the natural world, but it won’t come without pushback.
[…]
The oil and gas industry, hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is expected to challenge the move, as are fossil-fuel rich Western states whose economies are closely linked to extractive industry on public lands.
Anticipating the move, Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas companies in many Western states, said: “We’ll be in court shortly thereafter.”
Fossil fuel extraction on federal lands generates billions of dollars in royalties and revenues for local and state economies. But it’s also responsible for nearly a quarter of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden administration appears to be serious about cutting the country’s outsized contribution to global warming.
[…]
Biden’s halt on new oil and gas leasing also does nothing to affect activities on private or state lands, where roughly 90% of the country’s oil and gas development occurs.
“The industry has a lot of leases in production, a lot of leases that have been issued, so it won’t have an immediate impact. But it will give an immediate opportunity for the administration to think about how we move forward,” said Nada Culver, the vice president of public lands at the National Audubon Society.
[…]
“Ending permitting would be extremely difficult,” said Rebecca Watson, who served as assistant secretary for lands and minerals management at the Department of the Interior under President George W. Bush. “You have sold a property right, a lease, so you’ve paid for a lease and then you can’t develop it. I think there would be lawsuits and, rightly so, over a move like that.”
A permanent leasing ban would also be subject to lawsuits, she said. Under the Mineral Leasing Act, the government is required to hold quarterly lease sales. The Biden administration could make fewer or all lands unavailable for leasing, but Watson thinks a court might find that illegal.
Mark Squillace, a law professor at the University of Colorado who worked at Interior under the Clinton and Carter administrations, agrees that a permanent ban would run into more problems than a temporary pause. But he thinks the administration can make a big statement with its immediate actions.
[…]
NPR
This is perhaps the dumbest thing ever written:
Fossil fuel extraction on federal lands generates billions of dollars in royalties and revenues for local and state economies. But it’s also responsible for nearly a quarter of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden administration appears to be serious about cutting the country’s outsized contribution to global warming. generates billions of dollars in royalties and revenues for local and state economies. But it’s also responsible for nearly a quarter of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden administration appears to be serious about cutting the country’s outsized contribution to global warming.
Fossil fuel extraction on federal lands” is not “responsible for nearly a quarter of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.” Only an idiot could claim it was. And only a total fracking moron would link to a USGS report that proves their idiocy:
For the emissions portion of this study, we estimated the greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, and N2O) resulting from the extraction and end-use combustion of fossil fuels derived from U.S. Federal lands, including offshore areas…
USGS
Almost all of the emissions come from the “end-use combustion of fossil fuels.” Neither a pause nor a permanent ending of mineral leasing on Federal lands and waters would affect the total volume of oil & gas being extracted globally, nor would it affect the total volume of emissions from the “end-use combustion of fossil fuels.” It will just shift more of the extraction to private & state leases… and to places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Russia.
NPR: You win the Mother-of-All Ron White Awards.
NOIA Response to Biden’s Unlawful Action
Biden Oil & Gas Leasing “Pause” Regresses Emissions, Climate Progress
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, January 27, 2021Washington, D.C. – National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito issued the following statement in response to the Biden Administration’s Executive Order establishing a moratorium of new oil and gas leasing:
“This decision is contrary to law and puts America on a path toward increased imports from foreign nations that have been characterized as pollution havens. Any pause of American energy opportunities will do untold harm towards American economic, energy and environmental progress. Reducing American offshore oil and gas development means lost jobs, increased greenhouse gas emissions and less funding for outdoor parks and recreation activities for urban, underprivileged communities. There is no shortage of negative consequences from this leasing pause.
“The Gulf of Mexico is an American strategic asset, driving hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment across every U.S. state. Billions of dollars are generated for Federal, state and local governments. The Land & Water Conservation Fund, and the host of climate-mitigating and environmental justice programs it provides for, receives virtually its entire funding from offshore oil and gas revenues, including new lease bids. This decision could also hamper long-term energy affordability. As Americans continue to rely upon all sources of energy for maintaining a high standard of living, reduced supplies can put upward pressure on prices.
“While the executive order is framed as a step towards a climate solution, it pauses energy opportunities in a region that is already addressing climate and emissions goals. Gulf of Mexico production has a carbon intensity one half of other producing regions and the deepwater has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any source of oil and gas production. The innovators that define America’s offshore energy industry are already contributing to the continued advancement of climate change solutions.
“The Department of the Interior has a legal obligation to expeditiously develop America’s energy resources. Instead of fulfilling this obligation and capitalizing on an American environmental and emissions success story, this decision delivers an opportunity to China and Russia. As China and Russia seize jobs and investment, their energy, which is produced without the same level of regulations and standards as the U.S., could very well win permanent geopolitical importance to the detriment of the climate and the environment.”
Additional Content
In May 2020, the National Ocean Industries Association released the report, The Economic Impacts of the Gulf of Mexico Oil & Natural Gas Industry Report. Prepared by Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, the report examines the economic impact of Gulf of Mexico leasing or permitting bans. Below is the study and National and State Fact Sheets:The Economic Impacts of the Gulf of Mexico Oil & Natural Gas Industry Report
National Ocean Industries Association
National Economic Impacts One Pager
State Employment Impacts One Pager
The media, like NPR, tells half-truths and hopes no one notices.
NPR’s main audience certainly doesn’t notice, as they’ve been stupefied by a Liberal Brainworm that’s devoured their grey-matter.
But I would have awarded those NPR writers (NATHAN ROTT, SCOTT DETROW, ALANA WISE) a Billy Madison Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Pharaoh’s “So let it be said, so let it be done” shows no distinction between saying and accomplishing, as if writing laws solves the problem.
Same non-think here: extracting fossil fuels causes global warming, because they can’t see the actual processing in between extraction and use.
This is distinct from the non-think that reducing US extraction will reduce global extraction, rather than increase imports. A different kind of economic illiteracy from Trump, but just as willful.
“We” elected these idiots… Now “we” get to enjoy the loss of jobs, wealth, and general health to our economy. This is the problem with a democratic country mostly populated by people unable to understand basic economics or science. The only thing worse would be a socialist country mostly populated by people unable to understand basic economics or science.
With any luck, most of the executive orders can be tied up in court for years and possibly half of them thrown out as unconstitutional.
Worse than them being idiots, they’re morally corrupt, and the MSM is complicit in suppressing things like Hunter’s laptop, Ashley’s diary, etc.
A candidate taking “inappropriate” showers with his young daughter and niece would have been disqualifying in saner times. Now a crack head that is a business partner with a Chinese spy and who is invested in a CCP based company is in charge of advising his dad on China policy. Apparently, nothing wrong with that.
Robert, i don’t believe that , ‘ . . WE elected these idiots’. Yes, a lot voted for them, but from the info/data i have seen from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia (including the security video from the arena in Georgia that i have not heard ANYTHING more about – boggles my mind . .) , i believe FRAUD put Biden in office.
Yeah, i know, ” . .where’ the proof’ . .? ” I don’t think anyone is making an HONEST ATTEMPT to find it . . .
Oh well, sometimes life sucks, and we just have to get over it . . . 🙂 🙂
“We elected these idiots”
We did not elect the band of thieves.
“With any luck, most of the executive orders can be tied up in court for years”
Ole Biden sure does like dictating, doesn’t he. It comes natural to authoritarians.
Xiden was NOT elected, that was a coup if I ever saw one. In 4 years we will be begging for TRUMP
Make that four weeks. 🙂
Years ago, Carl Sagan said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
This is especially true of most politicians, so-called journalists, and activists.
Dominion elected those idiots.
We didn’t elect anyone. They stole it.
Number of lawsuits to go up up up.
Maybe uncle Joe’s plan is to retrain those 11,000 Keystone Pipeline employees that lost jobs as lawyers to handle the mountain of upcoming lawsuits. As long as they join a lawyer union, because Joe is only for new union jobs!
I’m still struggling to work out how even the government can rescind legal and binding contracts without penalty. Do they have an escape clause … or like my Canadian government has … a “notwithstanding clause”?
Well, it depends. Based on history, Democrat governments are pretty good at rescinding legal and binding contacts. Republicans not so successful. It has something to do with the Deep State in the Justice Department and appointed Judges.
Good insight!
The secret to negotiating one’s path through various bogs in The Swamp is little different than the inner workings of the Mafia … it never hurts to have a few judges in one’s pocket. Also, legislation from the bench is a time honoured tactic of The Left.
Oh, the goverment can take anything away, Rory, they just have to pay for it. See Noranda settles New World gold deposit issue, located in Montana, by accepting a large payment from the federal government for the “Taking, under the fifth Amendment”. So not only can Biden et al deny legal leases, they can then pay for the fifth Amendment violation. Environmentalists get the reward to delusion when it comes to CAGW, and everybody else pays for it (twice!).
They can’t. They’re being sued already for their irresponsible behavior.
Yesterday John Kerry, in a show of kindness and understanding, addressed the concerns of those Keystone workers. He didn’t actually say it but he wanted to tell them ‘learn to code’.
Aw shux, the coders union pays much less than the lawyers union 🤪
There’s just so much unifying going on! How can anyone stand it??
Biden doesn’t care about unifying with anyone who doesn’t look at the world the way he does.
I heard Karl Rove just say there were 12,000 “solar panel installer” jobs in the United States currently, and that was expected to grow to 18,100 jobs by 2029, and those jobs pay $21.58 an hour.
He showed that in the category of Oil and Gas Extraction, there were currently 163,700 people employed in “production and non-supervisory” categories and they averaged about $38.03 an hour.
And there are 172,00 Refinery workers and they make on average about $40.32 an hour
So Biden wants to take away their $38.03 per hour, or $40.32 per hour job and give them a solar panel installer job making $21.58.
And of course, there will only be 6,000 new solar panel installer jobs by 2029, and Biden has just put about 11,000 people out of work with the cancelling of the pipeline, and many more to come as he wreaks havoc in the oil and gas industry.
It doesn’t look like solar panel installer work is going to make up for the lost jobs and income that Biden is currently inflicting on innocent Americans, and doing so for no good reason, since he has no evidence that CO2 needs to be curtailed or regulated, yet he is regulating it anyway.
Lots of lawsuits in our future. Those 300 judges Trump appointed might come in handy. 🙂
Well, I’m off to get my Wuhan virus vaccine shot. The VA finally got a new supply in.
If you don’t hear from me again, it was fun! 🙂
I’m back. That was painless. No problems with the Wuhan virus vaccine. No different than getting a flu shot for me. My arm isn’t even sore.
Oh! And I forgot to add: Thank You, President Trump, for the vaccine!
It took about 6 hours for my arm to get a little sore. However, 24 hours later is was back to normal.
I almost never react to flu shots. I’m hoping my luck continues.
Yes, my arm is a little tender now at the injection site but still no worse than a normal flu shot.
I did read an article, actually several articles, yesterday, describing adverse reactions after the *second* vaccine shot, so I guess I’m not completely out of the woods yet. But I don’t expect any problems.
I do like the fact that my body’s immune system has now been introduced to the corona virus danger. Some doctors are now thinking that the human population has some degree of immunity from the Wuhan virus due to having been infected with other corona viruses in the past. They think this may be one reason some people seem to be practically immune to the Wuhan virus and some people are drastically affected.
I have not had a cold or the flu in at least a couple of decades, so I think that might mean my resistance to corona virus is lower than those who have caught colds recently, so this vaccination will hopefully make up for any shortfall
The Wuhan virus is a very nasty virus. Our health system is going to be dealing with the aftereffects from this infection for years to come.
We need to get serious about treating this virus early with therapeutics until we can get everyone vaccinated.
I noticed Fox News was scrolling a headline across the screen talking about Hydroxychloriquine yesterday, and it described that it did not seem to be effectve for serious cases of the Wuhan virus, but then they added at the end: that HCQ was shone to be effective if used early. That’s new for Fox News. And btw, Fox, HCQ has helped people who were on death’s door, so don’t rule it out even for serious cases.
And just to show how crazy the atmosphere is around therapeutics, Youtube, yesterday, took down videos of two U.S. Senate sessions where therapeutics were discussed. Not just hydroxychloriquine but also about a dozen other medicines that seemed to be effective against the virus, including Remdisivir. Youtube is censoring U.S. Senate testimony.
And then the Leftwing Media chimed in and called U.S. Senator Johnson, who was conducting the Senate hearings, a snake-oil salesman.
Btw, it seems Remdisivir may be targeting the Wuhan virus in its most vulnerable area. It looks like it might be the therapeutic of choice, and its available. The only problem is there is no nationwide policy to treat Wuhan virus patients early, even with Remdisivir.
In the case of the Wuhan virus, partisan leftwing politics has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people (and still counting), simply because they can’t bear to give Trump any credit for promoting therapeutics. So they demonize therapeutics instead, and prevent people from getting the medications they need.
The crap is going to hit the fan somewhere. We just had over a WEEK of overcast skies here. Not thin clouds – complete thick overcast. And the forecast is for at least another full week, not until after 2/6/21 is there a chance for clearing. Just how many of these solar panel installations are going to keep up with the charging requirements for the batteries that go with these solar panel installation.
I have a 2amp solar panel connected to 12volt deep cycle battery I use for my amateur radio station. It has a charging cutoff at 14v. It hasn’t reached that voltage for a solid two weeks (I use a beaglebone black to monitor battery voltage and charging current and store 1 minute data in a database). And it appears it will be at least another week before a full charge will be seen.
If you can’t keep a 12 trolling motor battery charged with a solar panel how in Pete’s name are you going to keep a household battery installation charged? And what happens when the battery can’t keep up with demand for electric heating?
All those new people applying for jobs as solar installers is going to reduce the amount they are being paid.
Good point. Ole Joe will probably mandate a nice salary for them.
I’d certainly love to see any evidence in support of such a rash statement. I wonder what “crisis” they’re referring to and in what context is the natural world “declining”? Biden has now signed a record number of executive orders, none of which he has likely read or understood … so stop blaming him. “Come on man!”
“We don’t need no stinkin evidence”. It’s because we can! This ispure radical left politics.
They told gobs of little lies about climate change for decades and got nowhere on public opinion.
Now they’ve taken a page from Goebbles, that If they keep telling big enough lie that there is no longer Climate Change, but an ever-worsening Climate Crisis, the people will start to believe the Big Lie.
– Joseph Goebbels,
see: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot
The use of “worsening climate crisis” phrase is a coordinated, climate communications-approved, propaganda effort that all the liberal media editors and writers have been instructed to incorporate into every story they can write about on energy and the Biden-Harris attack on US energy security.
It becomes really laughable that the propagandists have repeated the same dogma so often, many of them believe it themselves. The themes have become so ubiquitous that I even catch skeptics repeating aspects of the nonsense as if there was any basis at all.
1 Big Lie is easier to sell than a dozen little lies.
Hence the multiple of “climate crises,” from the carnival barker,
huckster media.
Not just one “climate crisis,” but a multiple of crises. (plural, “crises.”)
Always the big sell. Journalism turned to propaganda.
Always the PR hucksterism. That is what the media is spewing now.
But it makes the whole news cycle so much more predictable and easily digested, don’t you find? When the same message, using precisely the same wording, can be heard on every news outlet and by every self agrandizing news pundit, it’s so much easier to parrot their revealed wisdom to one’s friends.
“Joseph Goebbels” nods,
Climate scam propaganda has reached the Big Lie point.
“The themes have become so ubiquitous that I even catch skeptics repeating aspects of the nonsense as if there was any basis at all.”
This applies to Republican politicians, too. I just cringe when I hear a Republican politician giving validation to CO2 fearmongering.
Skeptics will have more progress by holding Republican politician’s feet to the fire when they go along with the Human-caused Climate Change scam, even a little bit.
That’s where skeptics can change minds. The Democrats are already living in La-la Land when it comes to the Earth’s climate.
Fox News had Borg Lomborg on this morning, and I just hate it when I hear him say Human-caused Climate Change is real, it’s just not as bad as the alarmists claim it is. Lomborg is making statements about the climate that he can’t back up with facts.
I think Lukewarmer philosophy should be pushed back on because there is no evidence supporting it. All it is is conforming to the consensus for social reasons. An evidence-free position.
Somebody ought to tell them it is evidence-free every time they say it.
We have the same problem here in Canada. The entire AGW, crisis, unprecedented, “climate change” etc. etc. has been given the Goebbels treatment so often even those who should know better tell themselves; “there must be some truth to it so I’ll ignore the elephant in the room” … no empirical evidence.
I’ve been doing that every day in one way or another for over 20 years … ad nauseam. “Luke-warmers” might be the most dangerous, especially when they know just enough of the science to offer their equivocation. It’s tautological that climate changes and in the grand scheme of things every energy source has some effect. But that isn’t the real picture. The term “climate change” is just equivocation … an appeal to ambiguity and if you say it you own it. The same goes with all the gibberish connected with GHE. Yes it exists … in the same way termite farts add CH4, but so what?
Excellent post, Rory. I look at it pretty much like you do.
Yes, the propagandists have spelled it all out for us. We just have to pay attention.
“…..address the worsening climate crisis …”
There is no climate emergency – it’s a non-problem!
The “climate emergency” began in November 2020; it seriously worsened on January 20, 2021… 🤬
C’mon, man. If you can site the exact moment, it’s weather not climate!
Somewhat related?
https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/news/information/information-detail/article/one-dollar-invested-in-rainforests-saves-5-dollars-40-spent-on-other-climate-protection-measures.html
“the administration can make a big statement with its immediate actions”. Yeah, it’s called the middle finger.
I was listening to the CBC news this morning when on Senator said Sleepy Joe should declare a climate emergency. The Washington correspondent for CBC, Lindsay Duncecomb, was giddy in her report. A far cry when anytime there was a report when Trump was President, when she acted angry and dramatic many times like the woman who reads the news on North Korean TV.
Lawsuits there will be I suppose.
http://www.westernenergyalliance.org/uploads/1/3/1/2/131273598/western_energy_alliance_biden_order_complaint.pdf
Be very careful with this, … you may end up on a target list in Langley or McClean.
“Biden’s halt on new oil and gas leasing also does nothing to affect activities on private or state lands, where roughly 90% of the country’s oil and gas development occurs.”
So what? Does the state get revenue from drilling and extraction on private lands? I think this is why New Mexico is so upset over this! Typical Dem policy – never consider there might be unintended consequences!
The end result of this decision will mean more CO2, not less and that’s what makes this really stupid for those that think there is a climate emergency. What the stupid people can’t comprehend is that fracking has created a low cost and low CO2 alternative to coal over the past few decades. Once you pull the plug on the cheap gas and force industry to choose between moving offshore or using expensive and unreliable RE, they will always move offshore, and usually to a developing country where cheap coal is the main form of energy generation.
Yup, more evidence that this isn’t about reducing co2 emissions, that’s merely a pretense. It’s about Leftist control.
It’s about the redistribution of wealth world-wide.
Ottmar Edenhofer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottmar_Edenhofer
The main problem is: the world’s wealth (resources) will be redistributed … to a few ultra-rich oligarches… Hunger is a cheap method for “population control”, and since the “desired target value” for the Earth’s population was set at 500 Mio to 1 Billion by the Club of Rome, one can see how many “natural deaths” are planned.
Joey has met the enemy….and the enemy is…..CO2? No, Joey, look in the mirror – there’s the enemy. China and the demrat party are the greatest threat since WW2.
Climate alarmists have been claiming that CO2 started the planet warming which, because of feedback, caused water vapor to increase which is driving further temperature increase. They calculate the WV increase from the temperature increase and the assumption of constant relative humidity. Actual WV has been accurately measured worldwide since Jan 1988. The trend of the increase is 1.5% per decade. If the alarmists would look they would discover that WV has been increasing faster than is possible from temperature increase. This demonstrates that CO2 does not now, never has and never will have a significant effect on climate and the idea of reducing the use of fossil fuels to prevent climate change is at best an egregious mistake.
Joe Dementia has no idea what he is signing. He’s completely out of it. If not for the stimulants, he’d be asleep.
His words are slurred, his mannerisms stiff and slow. He has memory loss, difficulty with language (he can’t formulate thoughts without a teleprompter), mood swings, and confusion. These are all classic and common symptoms of senile dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other age-related brain disorders.
Many of us have gone through this with our parents or grandparents. It’s tragic and difficult for families as the condition progresses. Experience brings familiarity. There is no mistaking Joe’s disabilities.
He’s a puppet of some really sick folks. Elder abuse is cruelty. What’s worse, the manipulators are out to destroy this country. Call it sedition, subterfuge, sabotage, or treason, the Death to America Cult is unleashed. We live in perilous times.
You’ve completely nailed it, Mike. If you look at every bit of film now, showing Sleepy Joe going about his presidential duties, you’ll notice that his wife is never out of the frame. This is one means to keep the ‘patient’ focust on the here an now … familiarity. Biden’s handlers are churning out record numbers of Executive Orders for him to sign, as his condition deteriorates. I’m guessing Kamala will be moved into his job before the campaigning for the midterms begins, later this year. She’ll still be a rubber stamp … but with the pretense surrounding the sobriquet; 1st womyn President. That means the Sun will shine from her fundamental orifice.
You’re right. It is elder abuse … shameful.
“… you’ll notice that his wife is never out of the frame …”.
He is fortunate to have Dr Jill one hand just in case.
I strongly suspect, as with so many D.C familiars, she too has an agenda … perhaps a book in the works, aspirations of a step up on the pyramid of the power elite. The Swamp offers sustenance to all with flexible ethics.
If I remember correctly, Dr Jill’s PhD is in education.
Her PhD is actually an EdD.
Same as Bill Cosby
An EdD is basically a certificate that allows one to become a senior administrator in schools and universities. A welding certificate is more useful.
“Call it sedition, subterfuge, sabotage, or treason, the Death to America Cult is unleashed.”
I would call it all those things.
On Tuesday, Jan 26, 2021,Kamala Harris had her second injection of covid 19 vaccine. She is not a health care worker and she is not over 65. So, there must be some other reason that moving her to the top of the vaccine line over other more critical need patients was approved.
Please! Don’t you understand that some pigs are more equal than other pigs?
Scene play based on documents found on an imaginary lost & found laptop, re-enacted for dramatization purposes:
-Dad, why do we need to import expensive what we can make home cheap?
-Because the oversea seller is a friend of mine son !
-And what will the crowds say?
-Who cares son ? We told them it’s for their own good and the suckers believe it !
-Sounds like a plan dad, you are a genius! Can I have a new vacuum-cleaner now?
I agree with you David M. My expertise is energy and climate.
The Biden Green Energy Plan will destroy the American economy and will do nothing to “save the climate” or “save the planet”.
Global Warming / Climate Change alarmism is destructive nonsense, promoted by scoundrels and believed in by imbeciles – “Wolves stampeding the sheep”.
So what are we going to call them, ‘Green Shirts’?
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2021/01/27/biden-executive-order-creates-civilian-climate-corps-to-fight-climate-change/
Greenshirts, Biden Jugend, probably end up being something like “Climate Peace Group” – these authoritarian types seem to enjoy antonym’s in names.
Who really thinks the Biden administration cares if something is “lawful” or not?
With the media and courts in your pocket? If the law is unfavorable, just change it…
They don’t have most of the courts in their pockets.
“Who really thinks the Biden administration cares if something is “lawful” or not?”
Not me. Biden has already shown he thinks he is above the law and the U.S. Constitution. I expect he will continue to think that way.
If history is any guide, he’s right.
Biden has already gone from a 60-day hold on drilling and fracking on federal lands to a one-year ban. That sure was fast. Is he going to extend the ban to ten years next week?
“The Biden Administration is set to extend a ban on new leases for oil and gas drilling and fracking on federal lands and waters for one year as it attempts to combat climate change, a source told FOX Business. The decision comes days after President Biden signed an executive order that put drilling and fracking on hold for 60 days.”
There’s no “hold” on drilling or frac’ing. The 60-day order took approval authority away from BLM, BSEE, BOEM, etc. Over the 60-day period, only the Secretary of the Interior and a handful of top (political) DOI officials can approve drilling permits. This order is probably legal.
The new order will reportedly indefinitely halt new lease sales. It will not affect existing leases. This order may or may not be legal and is already being challenged in court.
Neither order affects ongoing operations, not prohibits future activity on existing leases, which would be highly illegal.
That said, we do expect that the permit approval process will be slowed down to a crawl… Which is also illegal, but only risks contempt of court charges against the Secretary.
And here come the lawsuits. At least the GOP learned about using the judiciary from the Dems.
Clearly the Keystone pipe line crews missed a simple job saving trick here.
Once they knew the lunatics were going to be taking over the asylum, they should have self identified as a protected group that the Dems refuse to either criticise, or constrain.
My choice would have been to claim they were all transgender green peace XR activists, with BLM leaders demanding equality of outcome for all employees. The crews on Pipelines are about as diverse as it gets, so finding suitable characters to project the protected status of the work would have been very easy.
Lesson for next time boys, and girls and….. well you get the picture.
Is Biden also going to demand that all military vehicles be electric?
Speaking of retarded, here’s another Biden gem:
“We’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis. We see it with our own eyes. We feel it. We know it in our bones. And it’s time to act.”
Yes, and we feel it when we’re flying. We can smell it, hear it, and taste it. Just so long as we don’t step in it.
Even if they did stop all leasing and permitting, emissions of CO2 would not change. Same with the Keystone XL pipeline. When will these boneheads realize the only thing they are accomplishing is to weaken the US economy and destroy thousands of good jobs.
“The Department of the Interior has a legal obligation to expeditiously develop America’s energy resources”
Where is that written?
“The U.S. Department of the Interior uses sound science to manage and sustain America’s lands, water, wildlife, and energy resources, honors our nation’s responsibilities to tribal nations, and advocates for America’s island communities.”
https://www.doi.gov/whatwedo
“The U.S. Department of the Interior is the steward and manager of America’s natural resources including oil, gas, clean coal, hydropower, and renewable energy sources. American energy resources create jobs and revenue. With proper policies that foster growth and local input, the Department provides opportunities for new jobs and revenue for state, local, federal, and Tribal governments.”
https://www.doi.gov/energy/
Italics mine. The pause is for an evaluation of those “proper policies”. I’m glad that they will include an evaluation of how to update missing/inadequate cash in fist requirements for asset retirement obligations. They are now on track to be mostly shirked, both onshore and off. Those they can claw back in the form of adequate lock boxing (perhaps as a condition of future leasing), they will. A fraction of the rest of currently shirked well plugging/abandonment/restorations will be performed as an “oilfield to modern” employment bridging infrastructure project.
“Stewardship”. About time…..
“Italics mine” s/b “bolding mine”, of course….
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33404.pdf
OCSLA = Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
There is actually recent legal precedent regarding this sort of unlawful behavior.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/barack-obama?source=%2Fday-9-obama-repeatedly-defied-federal-court-with-gulf-oil-policies
The cases revolved around the requirement for BSEE (then MMS) to act on and approve acceptable APD’s and other permit applications in a “timely manner” (generally interpreted as 60 days).
Back in 2010, there was at least a veneer of justification for the initial moratorium… Even though it was enacted in the most reckless manner possible. In 2021, there is no legal justification for any of this.
Dems today have no knowledge of history other than the misconception that this nation was built by slaves (of course my grandparents-several-times-removed living in a sod house on the Kansas prairie would dispute this). It’s not that they ignore past precedent, they truly don’t even know that such exists. Every day is a brand new day for them, nothing happened before today.
For the most part, slaves grew cotton, which ended up making a small number of plantation owners rich.
Beyond that, the rest of the economy, even in the south, was non-slave.
Liberals have a long history of believing myths of their own making. The only thing that has changed over the years, is the number of lies they believe in. That has increased dramatically.
Your argument appears to hinge on what constitutes APD and other permitting “in a timely manner”. That, in turn depends on their justifications for the pause. FYI, since the DOI has acted politically, and in the rack with those they are supposed to be regulating, for the last 4 years, there’s plenty.
I do agree that after a very effective, 40 year effort by the Federalist Society, to subvert the judiciary (all the time whining about “activist judges”), the biz might find some complicit ones. But since both the GOM and the shale plays are in steep decline, even before COVID, if the pauses get shut down, there won’t be too much damage incurred before the review is completed and the ship is righted.
Bigger pic. You and Andy should have seen this coming for at least the last 20 years. And so you should have listened to the age old oilfield prayer, “Please Lord, if you give me just one more oil boom, I won’t blow it again”. Maybe spend the rest of the pandemic working on your Dallas real estate license.
Worse, Andy has mentioned 2 kids in the biz. Abjectly poor parenting. The reason we spend or lives like this is to make things better for them. My 2 are prospering in professions at least 2 degrees of separation from extraction businesses, and we count it as our single biggest lifetime achievement.
My argument hinges on the law and legal precedents… Which are the reasons why Biden probably won’t do anything totally illegal regarding existing leases and why the leasing pause is being framed as a temporary pause.
I think the Western Fuels Association filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in Wyoming yesterday. They are going to take the same path toward the Biden Administration that they did toward Obama — point out that this violates a lot of Federal law. The Ute tribe in Eastern Utah sent the “firm letter” to the Biden Administration late last week, and they will either sue or join another suit. The dominoes are falling.
Biden’s EOs are, ironically, a sign of collective mental decline, just as he shows signs of mental decline himself. These complaints filed in court are going to test how far the decline extends through our socciety.
Sorry, Western Energy Alliance.
My understanding is that Tribal lands are exempted from the leasing pause.
They apparently sent a letter nonetheless.
I strongly suspect that Biden will pull an Andrew Jackson here.
https://sustainatlanta.com/2015/04/02/remembering-the-time-andrew-jackson-decided-to-ignore-the-supreme-court-in-the-name-of-georgias-right-to-cherokee-land/
It’s even worse than merely ignoring the SC, for Andrew Jackson is reported to have said “How many troops do they command.”
inverse condemnation?
Meanwhile European investors are piling into Arctic oil investment with Russia.
Exclusive: Rosneft seeks to tempt trading houses into Arctic oil project, sources say (yahoo.com)
Nope. The “president” doesn’t have the authority to suspend leasing on federal lands.
The guy is an idiot!
Problem is: at this point, for practical purposes, the president has the authority to do whatever we don’t stop him from doing.
If it’s about the world being destroyed, what good does it do if we are now importing oil and coal? It’s about money and control. Tricking people into thinking they are saving the planet, when in reality Democrats are using it to move towards socialism.