|
The Interior Department announced a suite of potential lease sales across the country, both onshore and offshore. The department will accept 30 days of public input on the proposed parcels that vary in size from 14 acres in Oklahoma to thousands of acres in Wyoming and Montana.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden enacted a pause on new leases while the Interior Department undertook a comprehensive review of the federal oil and gas program that critics contend is rigged against taxpayers, public health, and the climate. Industry challenged the moratorium in court and recently convinced a judge to order Interior to lift the pause, even though the Interior Department has yet to release its review. On Tuesday the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced thousands of acres that could be sold at auction in the first quarter of 2022.
While drilling industry representatives welcomed the announcement, climate advocates and others who have called on the Biden administration to reform the leasing system expressed concern. “Committing more public land to filthy fossil fuel extraction is disastrous policy that will only worsen the climate and extinction crises,” said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re out of time. The Biden administration must move fast to bring an orderly end to the federal fossil fuel program.”
Lawmakers call for increased funding to Interior climate programs
68 lawmakers sent a letter to congressional leaders in both chambers calling for more funding to go to the Department of the Interior (DOI) as part of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. According to the lawmakers, the current amount slated for Interior falls tens of billions short of what is needed to sufficiently address a suite of environmental crises, including climate change.
The lawmakers' concerns are timely, as 99% of the American West is currently in drought, wildfire seasons have grown significantly longer than they were a few decades ago, and scientists are raising alarms about a mass extinction of plant and animal species. The letter says, "Simply put, we cannot claim to be taking climate change seriously if our budget fails to invest in essential DOI climate mitigation and resiliency programs.” The House Natural Resources Committee is set to mark up its portion of the reconciliation bill this Thursday, which includes funding for the Interior Department.
|
In the West, local elected officials like myself understand that healthy local economies and healthy communities are inseparably linked to a healthy environment. Nature provides us with food and clean water, shelter, medicine and economic opportunity. Westerners acknowledge this and have expressed support for the 30x30 goal, as described in President Biden’s plan for 
