BILLINGS, Mont. Nov. 3 (BNA): The Biden administration plans to sell oil and gas leases on swathes of public land in the western United States, despite the Department of the Interior’s conclusion that doing so could cost society billions of dollars due to climate change. Antiquities, according to government documents.
Administration officials announced last week that government regulators will analyze for the first time greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels extracted from government-owned land across the United States.
Burning these fuels accounts for about 20% of U.S. energy-related emissions, making it a prime target for climate activists who want to stop leasing. President Joe Biden has campaigned on pledges to end new drilling on public lands.
Hundreds of parcels of land nominated companies for hire was dropped from sales because of fears of damage to wildlife from drilling rigs, according to the Associated Press (AP).
However, officials at the Home Office of Land Management (BLM) said there is currently not much they can do to prevent the broad effects of climate change from burning fuel extracted from remaining parcels. This is partly because they cannot distinguish the importance of emissions from government-owned fuel reserves versus other sources, officials wrote in newly released documents.
That decision applies to rental sales planned for early next year in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and other states.
“The BLM has limited decision-making power to prevent meaningful or measurable cumulative effects of climate change that would result from global emissions,” agency officials wrote in their Montana lease proposal.
Similar data was included in the documents that were released for sale in other countries.
Administration officials said Tuesday that lease plans could change as the administration continues to analyze greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on people and the environment.
The Bureau of Lands plans to defer the lease of nearly 600 square miles (1,550 square kilometers) in Wyoming, 213 square miles (550 square kilometers) in Colorado and 5 square miles (14 square kilometers) in Montana due to potential impacts on struggling bird species. , the greater wise grouse, and the migratory spiny antelope.
However, Wyoming has the largest new lease area, approximately 280 square miles (725 square kilometers).
The alleged social costs of emissions from burning oil and gas from all packages — including more natural disasters, crop losses and public health problems due to climate change — are expected to range from $630 million to about $7 billion, according to the Land Bureau. docs.
The administration’s decision not to cite climate costs as a reason to limit leases frustrates environmental activists and others who have urged restrictions on government sales of fossil fuels. That undermines the president’s participation in the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, where Biden and other world leaders pledged on Tuesday to cut emissions of methane, a by-product of drilling, they said.
James Stock, professor of economics at Harvard University, said it was baffling for the administration to put a dollar value on greenhouse gas emissions, but then asserts that such effects are indistinguishable due to the global nature of climate change.
“Saying it’s too hard, they can’t do it — that simply isn’t true. All these calculations have been done,” Stock said. “This is very surprising to me and incompatible with the Biden administration’s climate goals.”
Similar decisions were made that US fossil fuel rental sales should not be severely restricted by global warming concerns under former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
“It looks like business as usual,” Jeremy Nichols of environmental group WildEarth Guardians said of the upcoming rental sales. “It goes against scientists’ finding that more fossil fuel production is unacceptable and that countries need to find ways to reduce production.”
Republicans and industry representatives were quick to criticize Biden last week when he announced plans to analyze greenhouse gas emissions. Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, an industry trade group, said the decision not to address it directly reinforces that halting federal land development will have little impact on climate change.
“Stopping all leasing and development on federal lands will have no impact on climate change, as production is simply shifted to non-federal lands or to OPEC” or other foreign producers, Sgamma said.
Studies by independent experts have concluded that some, but not all, reduced drilling on federal lands and waters will be offset by crude oil imports.
Approvals to explore in leasehold US-owned land surged towards the end of the Trump presidency, as companies hoarded the permits. That continued when Biden first took office before slowing down in recent months. Figures released Tuesday showed 261 drilling permits were approved in September, compared to more than 800 during Trump’s last full month in office.
Land office officials said in the lease documents that their regulatory authority was limited to activities directly related to oil and gas development — not fuel afterburning. Instead, they suggest reducing emissions by addressing methane leaks from oilfield activities and other avenues.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced additional measures to reduce methane emissions from drilling.
Next year’s rent sale will be the first by the office since Biden suspended the program just one week after taking office as part of his plan to tackle climate change.
The department was ordered in June to resume sales by a federal judge in Louisiana, who said Interior officials did not provide a “reasonable explanation” for its cancellation.
Prosecutors from 13 states sued the administration, saying the suspension would cost states money and jobs.
RAE