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On Thursday, President Joe Biden will deliver the final State of the Union address of his first term. America's public lands are in far better shape now than when President Biden took office, and the president has a lot to brag about. So far, President Biden has designated five new national monuments using his authority under the Antiquities Act, protecting 1.5 million acres of national public lands. However, it's been over 200 days since the last national monument designation. With just over 10 months left in his first term, President Biden has the opportunity to protect one or more new national monuments each month. Recent polling from Colorado College shows that 85 percent of Western voters support national monument designations and other conservation actions.
Now that oil and gas companies have to pay $5 per acre to nominate public lands for oil and gas leasing following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, companies nominated 95,029 acres in 2023, a 98 percent decrease compared to 2019 when nominations could be made anonymously and for free. And yet the oil and gas industry seems to be doing just fine—1.3 billion barrels of oil have been produced on public lands during President Biden's term so far, nearly double what was produced during a comparable period during President Donald Trump's administration. This record production shows that industry claims of “Biden’s war on oil and gas” are a myth. Oil and gas companies are still sitting on years of leased but unused acres and already-approved drilling permits.
For more on what to watch for in tomorrow's State of the Union address, dive into the numbers in a new blog post by Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss, and read CWP's progress report on President Biden's third year in office.
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We need to rethink this dynamic—we can’t just keep sacrificing local communities in the name of energy security or decarbonization.”
