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Since the beginning of the Trump administration, oil companies have leased just under 10 million acres of public lands for development. However, those 10 million acres leased are just a fraction of the staggering 461 million acres of public lands and waters offered to the oil and gas industry. According to the analysis conducted by The Wilderness Society, that figure is equivalent to four times the size of California. The report emphasizes the significant negative environmental impact of the greenhouse gas emissions from leases issued for public lands and waters.
It's all part of the Trump administration's plan to encourage drilling on public lands and offshore by offering more acres for lease at bargain basement rates, though critics question the need to lease so many acres when there is currently a glut of supply in the market. Among them is David Hayes, former Deputy Interior Secretary under President Obama, who says, "We’re in an era now where fundamental questions need to be raised about whether there should be more leasing or not. Millions of acres are already under lease that are not being developed.”
Interior Department budget proposal reflects the Trump administration's anti-conservation values
Despite the stewardship rhetoric from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, the former oil and gas lobbyist leading the Interior Department, the Trump administration’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2021 would cut funding for conservation, parks, endangered species, and climate change research while bolstering fossil fuel production on public lands. The budget calls for a 16 percent cut across the department’s budget, and individual agency cuts would cripple America’s land managers, opening the door for more drilling and mining.
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We have policies that govern the way we lease our federal lands for oil and gas development that are a century old, and they just haven’t kept pace. And we have others that haven’t been looked at in decades. This has led to really a tremendous giveaway [to the oil and gas industry].”
