William Perry Pendley 30 Apr 2022
In a city known for its duplicity, cynicism, and toxic partisanship, the Biden administration’s announcement on April 15 about the “resumption” of federal oil and gas leasing was among the most duplicitous, cynical, and toxically partisan announcement ever. It was slipped out the door, not just on a Friday–the day reserved for news an administration wishes dead before the following Monday–but on Good Friday, the holiest Friday in Christendom.
The announcement was the federal government’s response to a federal court order to resume leasing exactly ten months earlier. The federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees 245 million acres of surface and 700 million acres of mineral estate, is required by an Act of Congress, the Mineral Leasing Act, to conduct quarterly sales of oil and gas leases on lands not otherwise off limits to that activity. President Biden ended those sales his first week in office, but on June 14, 2021, a federal district court in Louisiana ruled that “pause” illegal. The Biden administration both appealed and asserted it was taking steps to comply with the judge’s ruling but slow walked the latter. Thus, days ago, the West, home of most BLM lands, entered its sixth quarter without a lease sale.
That was not all. Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, initiated adoption of draconian regulations making energy production more costly and warred against the ability of oil and gas operators to obtain financing. Energy prices began climbing. In response, Biden went hat-in-hand to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela asking that they, not we in the West, increase their production. Twice, Biden tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nonetheless, energy prices kept rising and Americans blamed Biden.
Thus, came Good Friday’s announcement, which reversed a Biden campaign promise to end oil and gas leasing on federal lands. Progressives outraged by Biden’s decision either have not read the fine print or are in on the mischief, for Biden eliminated 80 percent of the land available for leasing and increased the cost of operating those leases by 50 percent. Without saying so, Biden is achieving what radical environmentalists demand when they insist that we “leave” fossil fuels “in the ground.”
We have been here before during the Carter administration, when radical environmentalists—who Robert Zubrin called Merchants of Despair and who Reagan called Luddites— ran the U.S. government’s energy policy. Federal agencies chose what lands were available for energy exploration, instead of those who will invest hundreds of millions even billions of dollars to find new sources of oil and gas selecting the lands most likely to contain new sources of oil and gas. Federal agencies also limited available tracts to increase the price paid the government for their use and sought to maximize bonus bids and royalties. The federal government failure to find new energy rather than short-term federal revenues exacerbated the catastrophic 1979 Oil Crisis, which revealed Carter as helpless.
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https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2022/04/30/exclusive-william-perry-pendley-biden-continues-his-war-on-american-energy-with-sham-federal-oil-and-gas-lease-sales/
