Haaland dismisses expanding oil and gas leasing: ‘I feel the industry is set’

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the oil and gas industry is “set” with the amount of oil and gas drilling permits at its disposal and defended the Biden administration’s actions to scale down the federal leasing program.

Haaland, in a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, referenced the approximately 9,000 drilling permits approved on existing leases and the millions of acres of leased land not currently being exploited by companies in response to questioning from Republican members, who have widely criticized the administration’s approach for restricting production and blamed it for high energy prices.

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“There is no ban on leasing right now,” Haaland said. “The 9,000 permits — those have already been approved, and the industry is free to use these permits in a way they see fit. They just haven’t acted on those.”

“I feel the industry is set,” she added.

President Joe Biden ordered a pause on the leasing program in his first week in office, which was eventually itself paused by a federal court. That Biden order halted all new lease sales, although permitting for drilling on existing leases continued.

The Bureau of Land Management announced the first onshore oil and gas lease sales of Biden’s tenure earlier this month, citing compliance with the court order. The sales provide for an 80% reduction in the amount of available acreage relative to what had been originally nominated.

BLM also said it will raise royalty rates on the lands, something the Interior Department recommended last year in a report on reforms to the program.

The Biden administration held only one of the three offshore lease sales provided for in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan, which lays out a target for how many sales the bureau can undertake in a given year.

Some Democrats and environmentalists have sought an end to the federal oil and gas leasing program as a means of slowing climate change.

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Republicans and the industry, however, insist the program is necessary to maintain strong domestic fossil fuel production and give oil and gas companies certainty about the future viability of the industry.