Biden administration raises cost for oil and gas drilling on public lands for first time in decades
By
Breanne Deppisch
April 12, 2024 1:19 pm
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The Interior Department raised the cost for oil and gas companies to drill on public lands, raising leasing fees and royalty rates for the first time in decades, a move justified as generating more money for taxpayers and ensuring adequate cleanup costs.
Interior officials said the final rule is the first update to the oil and gas leasing program in decades, and the first update to the so-called “bonding requirement” since 1960.
President Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 on the promise of ending all new drilling on public lands, a pledge he has since backed away from as he has sought to balance his goals on climate with issues of energy security. Still, Interior’s new rule will spark pushback from oil and gas producers, who have argued Biden has whipsawed between urging them to drill more following Russia’s 2022 invasion, and then blaming them just months later for the record-high gas prices.
“This is another rule by the Biden Administration meant to deliver on the president’s promise of no federal oil and natural gas,” Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a statement on Friday. The group represents independent oil and gas companies.
Biden has also announced a series of overtures to appease environmental groups, including ordering the permanent ban on drilling on more than 10 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope, and, most recently, pausing the approval of new liquified natural gas terminals in the United States in order to consider environmental concerns.
Under the new rule published Friday, oil companies will be required to pay $150,000 per lease on federal lands — a fifteenfold increase.
more
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-and-environment/2964187/biden-administration-raises-cost-for-oil-and-gas-drilling-on-public-lands-for-first-time-in-decades/
