OIl and Gas

New USDA oil and Gas Leasing Rule

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I don’t know how this relates to the new rule.
Here’s the press release:

(Washington, D.C., January 27, 2026) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service finalized revisions to its regulation governing federal oil and gas resources on National Forest System lands. The revision modernizes and streamlines the process for managing energy development across millions of acres.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the updated rule today, emphasizing the Trump Administration’s joint commitment to eliminating outdated and burdensome processes and advancing President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Orders on Declaring a National Energy Emergency and Unleashing American Energy.

“President Trump has made it clear that unleashing American energy requires a government that works at the speed of the American people, not one slowed by bureaucratic red tape,” said Secretary Brooke Rollins. “This rule gives energy producers the certainty they need to expand supply to make energy more affordable, create jobs, and ensure America remains the dominant force in global energy markets – all while safeguarding forests and communities. Energy security is national security. These revisions create clarity and alignment across federal agencies, allowing our teams to move swiftly on leasing and permitting so American families and businesses can rely on affordable, dependable energy, while continuing to be good stewards of our public lands.”

“We are replacing the Biden administration’s bureaucratic delays with American innovation and efficiency,” said Secretary Doug Burgum. “These new rules provide the certainty needed to boost production, slash energy costs, and guarantee our global leadership. By streamlining permitting and cutting bureaucracy, we are lowering costs for families, creating jobs, and securing our nation all while protecting our public lands.”

The final rule (36 CFR 228 Subpart E), now published in the Federal Register, updates and simplifies federal oil and gas leasing procedures, allowing the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to seamlessly coordinate when issuing permits. By establishing a single, clearly defined leasing decision point and reducing duplicative analysis, the rule improves response times to industry requests, helps reduce longstanding backlogs, accelerates lease issuance, and supports the timely processing of applications for permits to drill.

Under federal law, the Forest Service manages the surface estate of National Forest System lands, while the BLM manages the subsurface mineral estate. The two agencies work together to develop permitting conditions under their respective authorities.

Currently, 5,154 federal oil and gas leases cover approximately 3.8 million acres (about 2%) of National Forest System lands. Of these, roughly 2,850 leases spanning 1.8 million acres across 39 national forests and grasslands contain producing federal oil or gas wells.

I think there’s probably at least.. 100  people in the universe who understand the differences from current regulations and practice.  From law firms of various ilks, industry and current and retired minerals folks in BLM and the FS.  I’d welcome guest posts from either “side”. or in the middle.. Apparently the Admin went back to the comments from a previous  ANPR (2018) and 2020 Proposed Rule.

Stated reasons for general support of the rule include the generation of revenue,  large existing demands for oil and gas, decreases in regulatory burden on the oil and gas industry, promotion of domestic energy production, the creation of a simplified process leading to quicker leasing decisions, and the elimination of duplication with the BLM.
Public comments received in response to the ANPR can be found on the internet at http://www.regulations.gov. Search for Docket ID: FS-2018-0053. Responses to the ANPR were considered during preparation of the proposed rule, which was published on September 1, 2020 (FR Doc. 2020-18518) and opened a 60-day comment period. The public submitted nearly 80,000 comments during the 60-day comment period.
Approximately 99.5 percent (79,180) of the comments received were form letters collected by conservation organizations. Only 439 unique, substantive comments or letters were submitted. These comments were from unaffiliated private citizens, State agencies, counties, Alaska Native Corporations, Tribal agencies, oil and gas owners and operators, environmental groups, and business associations.
All the form letters and most of the unique comments expressed opposition at some level, whether to oil and gas development in general or to oil and gas development on National Forest System lands in particular, or to the proposed revisions to 36 CFR Part 228 Subpart E or to the rulemaking process itself.
Supportive comments generally applauded the Forest Service’s efforts to improve clarity and efficiency in the leasing analysis and consent decision procedures, reduce redundancies in permitting, improve coordination with the BLM, and update procedures addressing noncompliance situations. Some supportive comments suggested specific edits to regulation text to help improve the efficiency of the process or the clarity of regulatory intent.
A detailed discussion of comments and our responses is contained in the “Summary of and Response to Public Comments” section.

I went back to the comments on regulations.gov.  I couldn’t find anything for “alaska native”. It would be handy if a) the search engine  in regulations.gov worked better and/or b) you could click a button to ask for only unique substantive comments.  I’ve been told I could do that if I download them all into an excel spreadsheet, but really, is that so difficult in this day and age for the USG to do it?

New Sage Grouse Draft Plan Released: Incorporates Ideas from Obama and Trump Admin Plans

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This is a great article by Scott Streater of E&E News; fortunately a TSW reader forwarded it to me, as it has a paywall.  It’s pretty comprehensive and hard to excerpt from, but I’ll try.

Here’s the link to the BLM press release, public meetings and the DEIS.  Here’s the BLM’s title and tagline;

BLM proposes stronger greater sage-grouse conservation plans

Analysis uses best available science and lessons learned to benefit species and western communities

I’ll try to hit the main points of the Streater article.

  1. It blends some of the Obama decision and the Trump era decision. Perhaps some horse-trading with western Govs? Or realizing that the 2015 approach doesn’t fit with desired renewable buildout?

In essence, the proposal outlined in a draft environmental impact statement Thursday is a compromise that a BLM news release emphasized draws on “the most successful components” of the Obama administration plans in 2015 that mandated protections for the most sensitive grouse habitat across 10 states and revisions to those plans the Trump administration approved in 2019 that gave states more leeway to greenlight projects near grouse breeding grounds and other sensitive habitat.

2.  Sgamma thinks that it’s an improvement

“It’s positive that the preferred alternative seems to be a blend between the other approaches and prior plans, which indicates that BLM is trying to find a workable balance,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance.

3. WEG and CBD don’t like it.

People familiar with the plan under development at the BLM previously said they expected the proposal to include 11 million “acres of critical environmental concern” to safeguard priority grouse habitat. But the preferred alternative released Thursday did not include ACEC designations, which provide strict land-use regulations that would severely limit livestock grazing, recreation and other activities. Other alternatives, which could still be selected in the final plan, do include the conservation designations.
The proposal would also remove one of the most contentious aspects of the 2015 plans: the designation of 10 million acres of “sagebrush focal areas” considered vital to the bird’s survival, where mining and oil and gas development would be prohibited. These areas will now be managed as priority habitat management areas.

My understanding is that the focal areas were added at the last minute by folks in DC, and stuck in some craws of some State folks who had worked collaboratively on effort.  If you remember from my story on  it, that my source said:

Folks from Garfield County, CO did a FOIA and found out that the changes were associated in time with meetings with various environmental organizations, including Pew. One particular idea added during these last changes was the idea of “focal areas”. The States went ballistic.

The Governors sat down with Secretary Jewell and tried to negotiate.

4. Pew Does Like It

For whatever reason, Pew seems to have an outsized influence on federal decision making under this Admin and also the Obama Admin, so this could be significant.

Marcia Argust, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. Conservation program, applauded the BLM “for bringing the latest science, including planning for climate impacts, to this round of sage grouse plan updates.”

5. If Grouse don’t like roads and footprints of O&G operations, they probably don’t like roads and footprints of renewable energy and transmission lines.

This has become an issue as the Biden administration works to build renewable energy projects on federal lands as well as the transmission lines needed to carry that green energy to market. BLM press materials announcing the proposal mentioned “clean energy projects” in discussing how the plans will allow for multiple uses “in a manner that limits impacts to sensitive resources and can also help combat climate change — the main driver of greater sage-grouse habitat loss.”

Actually, what the press release says is  “Populations once in the millions now number fewer than 800,000, largely due to habitat loss exacerbated by climate change, such as drought, increasing wildfires, and invasive species.”   Habitat loss seems to be the actual main driver, not climate change.

6.  RMP Amendments Around 2015 Sage Grouse Plans for Transmission Lines.

The BLM this month announced it was exploring amending three federal land-use plans to work around mandates in the 2015 grouse plans limiting the size of transmission lines and their proximity to priority grouse habitat. The BLM concedes it might need to do so in order to approve the 235-mile-long Greenlink North power line in Nevada that’s a Biden administration priority due to renewable energy

Hopefully those transmission lines will be well-maintained..and not cause further fires which are bad for sage grouse.

Energy News II: LNG Exports and Met Co-location of Renewables Idea

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LNG Exports

I guess the big news is the Admin’s LNG export infrastructure pause. I think the Admin’s reasoning was climate-related, or at least related to desires of certain climate activist types.  The Admin claimed that the analysis was out of date. Which I think is true, since there has been a war in Ukraine and hopeful a general reduction in Russian LNG exports to them.  Except that those need to be replaced by someone or something.  In the absence of our contribution, would that mean that worldwide supply would go down, which means Russia could make more money.. and our European allies trust us less.  This is all pretty obvious, but what I hadn’t heard in most of the coverage was that if exports are cut off, then it’s a boon to our own domestic gas prices (so will we use more?), and a boon to chemical industries who will make more profits (and produce more? with environmental implications?).  Thanks to Doomberg for that additional information.  Who knows? This seems to me like silly season fire hose flailing to get support from certain quarters (the Bill McKibben/John Podesta/random activists nexus), seemingly more of a political symbolic gesture than actually reducing emissions.  And yet.. wars use a great deal of carbon, so wouldn’t we want to starve Russia of profits?

I guess there are two questions in my mind: 1) will restricting exports have any net impacts on carbon emissions?  2) will restricting exports actually cause more carbon to be emitted due to the actions of other countries? (e.g. continuing to fund war, firing up coal plants)?

The industry association Eurogas was quick to condemn the move:

“Europe is committed to phase out its dependency on Russian gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and has tied this shift to its 2050 climate goals. In achieving both, imports of US LNG have increased by both volume and importance, and have helped to stabilise gas and electricity prices for European consumers. However, current volumes of LNG coming from the US still leave a supply gap, for which we must continue to increase imports, rather than scale them back, as has been put forward by some interests in the US’ governing institutions.

If additional US LNG export capacities don’t materialise it would risk increasing and prolonging the global supply imbalance. This would inevitably prolong the period of price volatility in Europe and could lead to price increases with the consequent implications that would have for economic turmoil and social impact.”

Now if Europe has economic and social turmoil, it’s possible that they might elect folks who don’t care about energy transitions that much and reduce efforts.. so there’s another potential impact.

So glad, I’m not involved in any EIS’s for these…it’s not clear to me what’s “reasonably foreseeable”.

Musician Has Federal Lands Co-Location Idea

Interesting idea of musician Met: Co-locating O&G and renewables on federal land. 

The idea began a little over two years ago with researchers at Planet Reimagined, a climate-focused nonprofit co-founded by Met. He said they mapped the federally leased oil-and-gas land and then worked with someone from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to determine the photovoltaic potential and the annual wind speeds on those leases. “There’s so much opportunity,” Met said.

New renewable generation can be built more quickly and cheaply on these sites, Met said. For instance, wind and solar applications could reuse the environmental site data collected for the original oil-and-gas project’s approval, cutting years off the environmental assessment process, he said. Sites often already have infrastructure including roads and power grid connections, reducing building costs and time.

Co-locating also avoids adding to the competition for land between conservation, agriculture, renewables, industry and other uses. It can also help transition the business of small, mom-and-pop oil-and-gas producers, their communities and their workers. Independent operators with a median of 12 employees produced 83% of U.S. oil and 90% of its gas in 2019, according to the latest data available from the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Now I don’t remember seeing electric lines to O&G rigs and production equipment out on federal land, which seems like it could be a problem.  So I asked a person online who is familiar with the industry (and if TSW readers know more, please help out.)

The great majority of Federal O&G leases are in remote areas and most are probably are not connected to the grid. The drilling rigs have their own electric generation equipment, which moves on with the rig after the well is drilled. Most production equipment do not require electric service. However some centralized facilities serve multiple wellsites, and those sites generally source their electrical need from small onsite generators, or if they happen to be near a municipal infrastructure, they will connect to local utility lines. In many cases, production equipment can operate on a small amount of electricity produced by a small solar panel with battery backup. The point being, not much electricity is required for the average operating site.

It seems like it might be a good idea, but we run into the need for those pesky and expensive transmission lines again.  Perhaps building them along existing roads would not be so bad.  Anyway, it’s a novel and interesting  idea from an unusual source.

The degree to which forest fires are caused by fossil fuel-driven climate change

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I happened to run across something that contradicts Bob Zybach’s repeated assertions that, “these fires have been clearly predicted by me and others because of USFS management policies and Wilderness designations and have zero to do with warming climate or drier fuels.”  The Union of Concerned Scientists calculated the effect of warming climate and drier fuels on burned area, and the result from their peer-reviewed analysis is not “zero.”

Climate change is causing hotter, drier conditions that are also fueling these increasingly large and severe wildfires. In particular, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a measure of atmospheric “thirst,” has emerged as a key way of tracking how climate change is amplifying wildfires because of its role in regulating water dynamics in ecosystems and, together with rising temperatures, contributing to increasing dryness (Box 1).

UCS used a combination of data and modeling to determine how much the carbon emissions associated with 88 major carbon producers (hereafter, the “big 88”) have historically contributed to increases in VPD and burned forest area across the western United States and southwestern Canada (see Methodology).

Across western North America, the area burned by forest fires increases exponentially as VPD increases, which means that relatively small changes in VPD result in large changes in burned forest area. The observed rise in VPD has enabled a steep increase in the forest area that has burned across the region since the mid-1980s. Since 1986,1 a cumulative 53.0 million acres of forest area has burned across western North America as VPD has risen. Without emissions tied to the big 88, the rise in VPD would have been much smaller, and 33.3 million acres (IQR 27.7 million–38.5 million) would have burned (Figure 4). That means that 37 percent (IQR 26–47 percent) of the cumulative burned forest area from 1986 to 2021 is attributable to emissions from the big 88. This represents nearly 19.8 million acres of burned forest area, or an area roughly the size of Maine.

You can criticize UCS for being agenda-driven (and we’ve talked about the limitations of “burned area” as a metric), but I’d challenge Bob or others to provide a similarly peer-reviewed research paper that attributes fire effects to his chosen causes.

 

The Ethical Paradox of Oil and Gas Use (Everyone Does It) Versus Production (Those Folks are Bad)

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Apologies to all, I had thought to be back to The Smokey Wire sooner.  I spent some time with the Public Lands Foundation in Cheyenne Wyoming, meeting many BLM folks and others dealing with access issues to public lands in Wyoming.  Then the next week, I was off to the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia, with The Breakthrough Institute, to experience how the other 1% lives and mix with admitted coastal wonky elites...here’s the agenda of that session. I’ll post some of the videos once they are up.  The next week I was back West to Rapid City, South Dakota with field trips to Wall, South Dakota to see efforts dealing with dispersed recreation and the restoration of black-footed ferret with the Rocky Mountaineers retirees’ group.  I hope to upload presentations on the latter so that you all can enjoy a virtual field trip.

What the three trips had in common was some amazing young people working on the problems of the day.   From getting minerals from seawater and enhanced rock weathering at TBI to restoring ferrets at the Wall Ranger District, to research at the Rapid City Forest and Grassland Research Laboratory, to regulating pore space for CO2 sequestration at the BLM.    Perhaps these are stories that are too much “in the weeds”, so to speak, for media to pick up on, but they’re out there.

So that’s one commonality that I observed on these trips.  The other was the omnipresence of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles (and trains, in the case of Cheyenne and Rapid City). Even in urbanized places in Northern Virginia and the District, I noticed many vehicles, and in fact, ended up in the DC morning rush hour from Middleburg one morning.  Even with excellent public transportation, as there is in NoVa, there are many, many, cars and trucks.  And of course recreationists coming from the Midwest to recreate in South Dakota and Wyoming.. cars and RV’s. This seems obvious.

And yet, when I look at my news outlets, such as Center for Western Priorities, or others, there are frequent articles on the badness of oil and gas production when it is done domestically.  In fact, there was a major environmental group push against the Biden Admin for the Willow Project.  Who knows what random goodies will be thrown by the Admin (perhaps some MOG treats?)  in attempts to placate these groups?

But what is that really about?  Do these groups think that outsourcing to say, Iran and Venezuela is environmentally more desirable?  Not to think like an economist, but reducing supply does tend to raise prices, and we care about poor or even middle-class people not being able to get to work or not affording food because of high gas prices. And we are shipping lots of military stuff abroad which runs on.. fossil fuels.

Some of us remember the oil embargo of 1973..this from an interview with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of RI:

“One in five gas stations in the country had no fuel to sell whatsoever,” Colgan said. “By January 1974, oil prices worldwide had quadrupled, and that led to a whole bunch of economic and political consequences” that are still present today.

When asked what it was like living through the oil crisis, Whitehouse shared that there were odd and even days to get gas, decided based on the last number of each person’s license plate. For example, if your license plate ended with a seven and it was an odd day, you could get gas, but if it ended with a six and was an odd day, you could not.

Whitehouse outlined the dilemma faced by oil companies at this time: “Do you keep your prices level because you have an obligation to your country and your customers, or do you follow the international cartel and take advantage of its price gouging?”

“Of course, they chose the latter,” Whitehouse said, explaining that oil companies chose to take advantage of their customers, rather than make gas affordable.

So O&G companies have not always acted well. Perhaps that’s a reason for hate. OTOH some of us also remember the financial crisis and banks being too big to fail and all that.  And yet.. we don’t see daily in the press  the need for better regulation of them. In fact, our friends in the financial industry do things like naming the CEO of Aramco to their board of directors.

The Biden Admin is all on domestic production of strategic minerals.. but not O&G. Or maybe DOE kind of is, but DOI is not.  It’s all puzzling to me.

Meanwhile there are people working every day, human beings, citizens of our country, whom I don’t think deserve this scapegoating. Union jobs, paying a family wage, diverse folks working that bring us what we are using every day.  So what is all this really about, and how do we “un-hate” ourselves out of it?

In fact, many of the folks most against  fossil  production use more than the average person, as in this article on Robert Bryce’s Substack.

Of course, Bloomberg can spend his vast fortune however he wants. According to Forbes, he’s the 11th-richest person on the planet, with assets worth $96.3 billion. (Bloomberg.com doesn’t include Michael Bloomberg in its rankings of the world’s richest people.) And the former mayor of New York City does not live modestly. As I noted in these pages in March, Bloomberg owns about a dozen houses. He’s also one of the biggest users of private jets. As I explained:

According to ClimateJets.org, Bloomberg, or people connected to him, used five aircraft which emitted about 3,197 tons of CO2 in 2022. That number puts Bloomberg in the top 10 of all private jet owners in terms of emissions. For comparison, the average American is responsible for about 16 tons of CO2 emissions per year. In other words, Bloomberg’s fleet of jets is emitting about 200 times more CO2 per year than what’s emitted by the average American.

Recall in announcing his $500 million grant to Beyond Carbon, Bloomberg claimed he wants to move “beyond fossil fuels” and replace them with renewable energy. Last year, Bloomberg, or people connected to him, flew on his private jets to New York, New Jersey, Florida, Bahamas, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Bermuda, Switzerland, France, Costa Rica, Brazil, Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. All that flying required burning about 328,000 gallons of jet fuel. For comparison, that’s about 670 times more than the volume of gasoline consumed by an average American motorist in a year.

Also, recall that in 2021, Bloomberg said, “We’re in a race to save Earth from climate change.” It’s unclear to whom Bloomberg referred when he used the royal “we.”But given his predilection for far-flung houses and private jets, it seems that the media mogul and near-centibillionaire is a lot like the rest of us when it comes to using hydrocarbons.

How can we both use something- in fact it’s vital to our economy-  and say at the same time, that the (domestic only?)  folks that produce it are bad and need to be shut down? Or is it simply that it’s easier to shut down things here than other countries (the policy equivalent of logging the flat ground).

Aside from obvious potential class issues related to workers.  I wonder what that does to people internally to live with that contradiction if they really believe what they say about production. To me, it’s a bit as if the Deuteronomic food laws said “you can eat shrimp, but only if the Canaanites produce  it for you .”  I find it all very puzzling.

I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere, and I am curious about what TSW readers think.

The Missing Utes and Coverage of the Uinta Basin Railway Project

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I think this is the preferred route. here’s the website: https://uintabasinrailway.com/

If you look at media coverage of this issue, sometimes you don’t even see the Ute connection mentioned. I wasn’t keeping a list, but ran across a recent story from a few days ago on NPR from Aspen Public Radio in which Utes were not mentioned among the folks who support the railroad.

The below op-ed ran in the Denver Post on August 14, 2023.

It’s also interesting what Chairman Murray of the Ute Tribe Business Committee has to say about consultation on the Camp Hale Monument designation, and the Tribe’s hunting and fishing rights.

As Chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, I am shocked and disappointed by the actions of Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and other state lawmakers that reflect disregard and contempt toward our peoples’ ancestral ties to Colorado.

Ute Indians occupied what is now the state of Colorado from time immemorial. Although the federal government forced us to relocate to eastern Utah in what we today call our Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Colorado remains our ancestral homeland.

Once we were forcibly relocated to the arid Uinta Basin, energy mineral production has become the main source of livelihood for our people, who would otherwise struggle to put food on the table, access education, and provide shelter for our families.

The Uinta Basin Railway Project would provide much-needed infrastructure and allow our Tribe to access energy markets nationwide, but Colorado is dead set on standing in our way. Governor Polis and Colorado lawmakers are lodging a campaign to shut down this project simply because it would connect our oil with a wider market.

As planned, the Uinta Basin Railway is an 88-mile single-track rail line that would connect the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah to the National Railway Network, providing energy mineral producers in this region with the infrastructure needed to access markets throughout the nation for the first time. About eight miles of track would cross Tribal lands on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.

While the federal permitting process is near completion, Eagle County, Colorado, has joined environmental advocacy groups in filing suit asking that these federal permits be set aside, causing yet further delay in groundbreaking on the project.

Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper are using the recent derailment accident in Ohio as justification to deny us the ability to market and transport the oil produced on our land from our Reservation. This is a flawed comparison. The Ohio derailment involved highly hazardous, flammable substances. The unique crude oil we produce from our Reservation is a waxy product that does not flow like regular oil and is not flammable. It is transported by rail as a solid, not as a hazardous liquid.

Efforts by Polis and Colorado lawmakers to block this important project reveal their deference to environmental lobbyists and advocacy groups whose livelihoods do not depend on sustainable energy development.

These groups blindly oppose any and all oil development, and Colorado officials have clearly bought in. It is a shame that Colorado continues to act with no regard for the adverse impacts on a marginalized people who have long been stewards to the lands and resources they claim to protect. This is not environmental justice. In fact, it is the very opposite.

Opposition to the Uinta Basin Railway Project is not the only recent example of Colorado’s dishonorable treatment of our Tribe.

We retained hunting and fishing rights within Colorado boundaries under our treaties with the United States, but our efforts to work in cooperation with the Colorado state government to exercise and enforce our treaty rights have been stonewalled every step of the way.

Following years of refusing to meet with us as the elected leadership of the Ute Indian Tribe on this issue, Governor Polis and his administration are now refusing to enter into a cooperative agreement surrounding the exercise of our treaty rights. Governor Polis has no authority whatsoever to interfere with our treaty rights, and our Tribe plans to proceed in exercising our rights as affirmed by the Supreme Court in its 2019 opinion in Herrera v. Wyoming.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has followed Colorado’s lead in ignoring our treaty rights surrounding our ancestral homelands.

President Joe Biden recently established the Camp Hale National Monument in the middle of our ancestral lands. This was done with no government-to-government consultation with our Tribal leadership whatsoever.

Over a century after our people were stripped from our homeland and pushed into the Utah desert, the Biden Administration now seeks to further dispossess our ties to these lands by designating a monument without including us and attempting to erase our history and connection to these lands.

Julius T. Murray III is chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. The Ute Indian Tribe resides on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah. Three bands of Utes comprise the Ute Indian Tribe: the Whiteriver Band, the Uncompahgre Band, and the Uintah Band. The Tribe has more than 3,000 members, with over half living on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The Ute Indian Tribe operates its own tribal government and oversees significant oil and gas deposits on its 4.5 million-acre Reservation. The Tribal Business Committee is the governing council of the Tribe.

Alaska Oil and Gas Leases Cancelled Due to …Poor NEPA?

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Now, I’m not a lawyer,  but I have sat in many meetings with OGC folks about cancelling existing oil and gas leases.  So I was surprised by this :

Here’s  the NPR story.

“They just yanked those leases,” Sullivan said. “But now we’re going to get ready for the next lease sale. Give me a break. Who the hell in their right mind would invest money in a lease sale when they just watched the first lease sale get yanked?”

The administration is required to hold at least one more lease sale in ANWR. Senior administration officials said they “intend to comply with the law” in regards to that mandate which requires another lease sale by December 2024.

The original sale, held during the last weeks of the Trump Administration, drew unexpectedly little industry interest. Major oil companies did not participate, and the state of Alaska was the largest bidder.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on the Hill she wants to put pressure on Biden to reverse his decision but cautioned that it’s “incredible to think that people are going to trust this administration on anything related to oil in Alaska.”

Haaland said the environmental reviews done under the Trump administration to allow the lease sales were “fundamentally flawed and based on a number of fundamental legal deficiencies.”

According to a Biden White House release, this includes failure to adequately analyze a reasonable range of alternatives and properly quantify downstream greenhouse gas emissions, as well as failure to properly interpret the 2017 tax law.

The administration said Wednesday’s announcement “does not impact valid existing rights” from developing leases.

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So it sounds like, based on this, Admin’s can simply state that the previous analysis was wrong and revoke decisions? Folks can always find flaws in any analysis.. one would think that since our usual suspect ENGOs did not litigate this project that they didn’t see those fundamental flaws quite so.. clearly.  And yet, we can suspect they didn’t want these leases, because at least some are supporting this decision.

I don’t particularly like the idea of possibly endlessly recursive NEPA.. suppose the Admin were to find “fundamental flaws” in the last ten years of Forest Plan EIS’s.

It will also be interesting to see how this is portrayed politically; looks like at least one Alaskan D is not on board.

“I am deeply frustrated by the reversal of these leases in ANWR,” said Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola. “I will continue to advocate for them and for Alaska’s ability to explore and develop our natural resources, from the critical minerals we need for our clean energy transition to the domestic oil and gas we need to get us there.”

According to AIDEA, the non-wilderness section of the ANWR where its leases are located contains approximately 7.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The agency said a large share of economic development and jobs supported across Alaska’s indigenous and rural North Slope communities are related to oil and gas development.

Deb Haaland claims that this commitment recognizes Indigenous Knowledge, but doesn’t acknowledge that different Indigenous groups disagree about the project.  I guess that some Indigenous folks’ views count more than others.

“With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” Haaland said in a statement. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history.”

“The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations,” she continued.

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Coincidentally, journalist Matty Iglesias on his Substack this morning made the claim that:

The current Biden policy is to support domestic oil production for economic and geopolitical reasons, even while investing in long-term decarbonization via technological progress. The old Schumer policy was to try to take advantage of the pandemic to crush the domestic oil and gas industry.

I think we can safely say we are entering pre-election silly season.

 

New York Times Story on the Alaska Willow Project

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Caribou near ConocoPhillips oil pipelines, which are elevated to allow herds to pass beneath.

 

There are several different lenses I’ve been looking at news stories through. One is a regional lens- so let’s take a look at this story about the Willow Project in Alaska.  This project has had major ENGO forces arrayed against it, and the State folks united for it. Apparently it had bipartisan support in Alaska, plus support of many Alaska Native groups.

As per this quote from Rep. Peltola (D-AK)

 “I am grateful that the court has recognized the fact that Willow is a well-planned and beneficial project for Alaska and the nation, and that this most recent lawsuit should not be allowed to overrule the wishes of Alaskans and the President while it is being litigated,” said Rep. Peltola. “With this decision, the court acknowledges the years that the Willow Project has already spent under extensive litigation and environmental review, the approval of multiple levels of government, and the strong support for the project from the majority of affected Alaska Native groups. It’s finally time for Alaskans to get to work, and I look forward to seeing construction begin as we await the final resolution of this case.”

Anyway, the NYT story leads off with (in the tagline):

“Scientists say nations must stop new oil and gas projects to avoid climate catastrophe.”

Which scientists? There’s a link to the new IPCC report.

While scientists have warned that nations must stop approving new oil and gas drilling or face a perilous future on a dangerously heated planet, the people involved in the Willow project are eager to get going.

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At the earliest, the crude would begin flowing in about six years. By that time, the Biden administration hopes that demand for oil will have plummeted because of federal investments to encourage use of renewable energy and to encourage a transition to electric vehicles.

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Of course, that’s not what the Energy Secretary is saying..

The world will need fossil fuels for decades but they must be paired with technologies that capture their greenhouse gas emissions, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday.

The Biden administration wants the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to help limit global warming. It is seeking to displace oil, gas, and coal with renewable energy and electric technologies, but forecasts, including those by the Energy Information Administration, indicate prolonged demand for traditional energy sources.

“We know that even the boldest projections for clean energy deployment suggest that, in the middle of this century, we’ll be using abated fossil fuels,” Granholm said during remarks at CERAWeek by S&P Global, an annual industry conference in Houston.

“Abated” refers to fossil fuel combustion linked with carbon management technologies, which capture emissions so they can be kept from entering the atmosphere.

“We need both traditional and new energy,” added Granholm, who, along with President Joe Biden, has asked the oil and gas sector to increase production to alleviate high energy prices at home and in the larger global energy marketplace.

Her pronouncement comes as many environmental interest groups and some lawmakers in Congress push for policies to block new oil and gas development and related infrastructure to slow climate change.

The administration has supported increased oil and gas production in response to higher prices and the war in Ukraine.

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My bold, decades vs. six years. Maybe the difference is between “hopes” and “beliefs”.. but maybe different people in the Biden Admin have different views.. and it’s not speaking with one voice on this?

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Still, projected emissions from Willow would be a small fraction of the 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually by the United States, the second biggest polluter on the planet after China. ConocoPhillips and the Biden administration both say that if Willow were not permitted, supply to meet demand would just shift to oil drilling elsewhere.

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It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics, plus recent experience, to say that reducing supply without decreasing demand leads to higher prices. Which affect the poorest people the most.  It would be interesting if the reporter found someone who would go on record as explaining the mechanics of how supply would not go elsewhere.

Burning all that oil could release nearly 254 million metric tons of carbon emissions. On an annual basis, that would translate into 8.4 million metric tons of carbon pollution, equal to adding nearly two million cars to the roads each year.

Again, it’s not clear to me why reporters continue to make these statements.. I guess anything “could” happen and there is a world in which folks wouldn’t have used those 600 million barrels if they hadn’t been produced in this project.

 “When do you get off fossil fuels?” said Abigail Dillen, the president of Earthjustice, which is leading the lawsuit against the project. “After you destroy one of the most important and fragile ecosystems for wildlife in the world, or before?”

This seems like rhetoric, not an actual path to decarbonization.  The “just say no” campaign directed at producers, not users.

I thought this was curious.. perhaps while the oil fields are “giant”,  500 acres to suck it out is.. not.

To drill profitably in the North Slope, the oil fields have to be “giant,” Mr. Marks said. Although the Biden administration reduced the size of ConocoPhillips’s original plan, Willow will have a footprint of almost 500 acres and at its peak could generate about 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

This was also curious..

The benefits to Alaska, which remains dependent on fossil fuel revenues because it has no statewide sales tax or personal income tax, will be somewhat limited. Willow is on federal land, which means that Washington will receive royalties but that Alaska will be able to collect only oil-production taxes, which would be offset by company tax deductions for expenses. For a few years, until the oil starts flowing, Willow could even have a small negative impact on state revenues.

I’m confused.. aren’t some of those royalties returned to the States? I looked at the BLM website and it says:

All Federal oil and gas royalty, rental fee, and bonus bid revenue is split about half between the U.S. Treasury and the states where development occurred. The amount of annual revenue that Federal mineral development provides to the U.S. Treasury is second only to that provided by the Internal Revenue Service.

In fact, it looks like New Mexico made 2.74 billion from the feds for oil and gas in 2022, and Alaska 45 mill.  Thank you helpful DOI site!

What I like about this story is that Native Alaskans who support the project are interviewed in addition to those concerned about it (and the great photos).

Their attitude seems to be .. if we are going to be using it (oil and gas) why shouldn’t it come from here?  And we get taxes and economic benefits and our own environmental regulations. This seems reasonable to me.

And why isn’t the Energy Secretary’s approach (or maybe it’s the entire Admin, who can tell?) good enough for Earthjustice?

DOE and BLM: Seemingly Contradictory Energy Strategy

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Secretary Granholm at CeraWeek .Bloomberg photo.

Right hand-left hand. Interior vs. Energy.. with the White House as referee or ????

I’d like to start with Secretary Granholm’s statement at CERA week. From an article at E&E News..Energywire (open access).

The Biden administration’s seemingly contradictory energy and climate strategy was on full display here Wednesday: Try to pivot away from fossil fuels, but promote them for now.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm faced that paradox as she addressed energy leaders and insiders gathered in a hotel ballroom, praising the uptick in U.S. oil and gas exports during Russia’s war in Ukraine while touting a clean energy shift.

“Europe is poised to reach the spring without major outages or shortages, and that’s thanks in no small part to many in this room, who have been producing and exporting and working with the U.S. and with allies,” Granholm said.

“Indeed, the U.S. has become in this year an indispensable energy partner to our allies and a global energy powerhouse,” she said to applause.

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Meanwhile, in another blow to the fossil fuel sector, the Biden administration said this week that a new five-year plan for offshore oil and gas drilling may be delayed until December (Greenwire, March 8).

To “complete all necessary analyses, approvals, and mandatory procedural steps, Interior requires until December 2023 to finish and approve the next Program,” said Walter Cruickshank, deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a legal filing.

That prompted a sharp rebuke from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key architect of the Inflation Reduction Act and a fossil fuel ally.

“The Department of the Interior made it painfully clear — again — that they are putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security, and they are willing to go to great lengths to do it,” Manchin said in a statement Wednesday, saying the December deadline is “18 months late.”

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Despite Granholm’s comments commending the fossil fuel sector, she used much of her speech to champion a clean energy transition.

Granholm announced $6 billion in new grants for industrial decarbonization projects, which may involve carbon capture and hydrogen. And she urged the fossil fuel sector to help develop those and other technologies.

“The U.S. is the indispensable nation, and our companies are producing irresistible products. And this administration is all in on it,” Granholm said. “We need the energy sector stepping up and that certainly includes the oil and gas industry.”

“You have the skill sets and knowledge to build some of these critical technologies at scale,” she said.

There’s also a story at Bloomberg that looks interesting but is paywalled:
Energy Secretary Granholm Changes the Tune on Big Oil
Just five months ago, President Biden was accusing the oil industry of profiteering. Yesterday, his energy secretary went to Houston to shower executives with praise.

You’d almost think there are three loci of control… the pragmatic DOE, the ideological DOI and the White House trying to placate key Demo interest groups without going to far into doing things that won’t look good for the 2024 election. The oil and gas industry.. demonized by some, and flagellated to produce more by others in the same Admin. If I were a political science professor, I would find this fascinating. What causes agency divergence? Career feds, or loyalties of politicals to the interest groups they came from? When are divergences tolerated, and when are they expunged?

Colorado big game corridor amendment

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Wildlife crossings, such as this one under U.S. Route 285 near Buena Vista, Colorado, provide safe passage for migrating elk and other animals.
Matt Staver/Getty Images

The Bureau of Land Management Colorado State Office is considering an amendment to oil and gas program decisions in existing BLM Colorado resource management plans to promote the conservation of big game corridors and other important big game habitats on BLM-administered land and minerals in Colorado.  The scoping period ended September 2.  This press release includes a link to the official website.  Here is the project description:

Description: The BLM will propose and analyze, with the best available scientific methods and information, a statewide amendment to existing BLM Colorado land use plans to evaluate alternatives for planning-scale oil and gas management prescriptions for the conservation of important big game habitat. The BLM will consider whether to incorporate new or changed oil and gas management decisions in existing land use plans, such as limits on high-density development, including facility and route density limitations, and other lease stipulations that would incorporate conservation measures for important big game habitat areas in Colorado.

This is in response to the 2018 USDI Secretarial Order No. 3362, “Improving Habitat Quality in Western Big-Game Winter Range and Migration Corridors,” and the release of the state of Colorado’s Big Game Policy Report, which recommended the bureau actually undertake this amendment to strengthen oil and gas lease stipulations consistent with new wildlife rules.

This sounds like good planning, which should be expanded to include:

  • The Forest Service.  Especially if you are talking about connectivity, it does little good if it runs into a “wall” created by management of other ownerships.  How is the Forest Service going to be involved in this?  (Especially where BLM administers leases on national forests.)
  • Other energy.  We have talked about the need to do this kind of thing for renewable energy proposals, and why shouldn’t that be integrated with this kind of planning effort for oil and gas?
  • Other species.  Just because big game species have more lobbying power doesn’t mean such efforts should ignore the same kinds of connectivity issues for other species like sage-grouse and large carnivores.  Including areas used by many species should be a goal.
  • Other states.  The Order calls for collaboration with states, and it looks like Colorado has taken the initiative here, but that doesn’t mean the BLM couldn’t be promoting this elsewhere, or that it is precluded from initiating an effort that would include state participation.