Stringfellow Hawk
Member
First, the administration should mitigate the headwinds it has already embedded in future production by holding lease sales as soon as possible. To do so, the administration must stop invoking excuses for evading its duty to conduct such sales.
Interior recently announced that the one onshore lease sale in the planning process is now indefinitely on hold due to a recent court decision barring the administration from using its interim estimates for the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. This particular cost analysis, however, is not required for lease sales, so the administration can and should proceed with previously used cost estimates.
With respect to offshore leasing, Interior should promptly complete the next five-year leasing program, which is required by law, as expeditiously as possible. In addition to the already unprecedented gap of more than one year since the last successful lease sale under the current program, we are also on track for at least a second year without offshore leasing. There is no excuse for the administration’s protracted delay in issuing the next iteration of the offshore leasing program.
Second, the administration should work with all relevant agencies to ensure that infrastructure permitting processes are designed and implemented in a manner that ensures consistency, transparency and timeliness – supporting both federal production and much larger production on state and private lands. (Another benefit to the administration is that this would aid renewable energy infrastructure, too.)
Third, the administration should reinstate the leases it suspended in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the permit development it approved in the National Petroleum Reserve. These were permitted with stringent environmental standards and could prove to be a significant source of domestic production over time.
Fourth, if the administration wants to see domestic energy projects and production continue, it should end its efforts to deny capital to oil and gas producers. American energy leadership requires a fair and welcoming investment environment.
Without the above policy changes, the unfortunate result will be a steady decline in oil and gas production over the next several years – and a reliance on unsteady regimes. Europe knows how that movie ends.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/biden-energy-gas-prices-oil-frank-macchiarola
Interior recently announced that the one onshore lease sale in the planning process is now indefinitely on hold due to a recent court decision barring the administration from using its interim estimates for the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. This particular cost analysis, however, is not required for lease sales, so the administration can and should proceed with previously used cost estimates.
With respect to offshore leasing, Interior should promptly complete the next five-year leasing program, which is required by law, as expeditiously as possible. In addition to the already unprecedented gap of more than one year since the last successful lease sale under the current program, we are also on track for at least a second year without offshore leasing. There is no excuse for the administration’s protracted delay in issuing the next iteration of the offshore leasing program.
Second, the administration should work with all relevant agencies to ensure that infrastructure permitting processes are designed and implemented in a manner that ensures consistency, transparency and timeliness – supporting both federal production and much larger production on state and private lands. (Another benefit to the administration is that this would aid renewable energy infrastructure, too.)
Third, the administration should reinstate the leases it suspended in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the permit development it approved in the National Petroleum Reserve. These were permitted with stringent environmental standards and could prove to be a significant source of domestic production over time.
Fourth, if the administration wants to see domestic energy projects and production continue, it should end its efforts to deny capital to oil and gas producers. American energy leadership requires a fair and welcoming investment environment.
Without the above policy changes, the unfortunate result will be a steady decline in oil and gas production over the next several years – and a reliance on unsteady regimes. Europe knows how that movie ends.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/biden-energy-gas-prices-oil-frank-macchiarola
