The Biden administration resumes oil and gas leases on federal land but in a reduced capacity and with steeper fees



This past Friday, the Biden administration announced that it would resume granting lease sales for the drilling of oil and natural gas on federal lands.

However, as the Washington Examiner reported, the Biden administration intends to drastically decrease the amount of federal land available for drilling and plans to increase the royalty it charges companies to produce oil on federal lands.

In a recently released press release, the Department of the Interior said that it will make 144,000 acres of federal lands available for drilling. This is an 80% reduction in acreage that was originally designated for natural gas production. The department will also begin charging companies drilling royalties of 18.75% instead of 12.5%.

The release said, “The [Bureau of Land Management] will issue final environmental assessments and sale notices of upcoming oil and gas leases that reflect this strategic approach.”

“The lease sales will incorporate many of the recommendations in the Department’s report,” the release continued. “Including ensuring Tribal consultation and broad community input, reliance of the best available science including analysis of GHG emissions, and a first-ever increase in the royalty rate for new competitive leases to 18.75 percent, to ensure fair return for the American taxpayers and on par with rates charged by states and private landowners.”

It continued, “The BLM assessed potentially available and eligible acreage in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. It began analyzing 646 parcels on roughly 733,000 acres that had been previously nominated for leasing by energy companies. As a result of robust environmental review, engagement with Tribes and communities, and prioritizing the American people’s broad interests in public lands, the final sale notices will offer approximately 173 parcels on roughly 144,000 acres, an 80 percent reduction from the acreage originally nominated.”

This move by the Department of the Interior comes as the Biden administration begins to acknowledge the importance of increasing domestic energy production amid soaring energy prices.

Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, called the department’s new plan an overdue “reset’ of the leasing program.

She said, “For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands.”'

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western nations issued thoroughgoing sanctions on the Russian economy. The U.S. was quick to stop importing Russian oil, and since the Biden administration ended American energy independence, American energy prices drastically rose as there was suddenly less oil being imported.

Energy Sec. Granholm begs for companies to increase oil production after Biden admin denied that it would help gas prices



The Biden administration appeared to put out conflicting messages on gas prices when U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm begged oil companies to increase production in order to ease the price at the pump.

The statement came after several administration members denied that increasing domestic production was possible or that it would have any effect on gas prices.

“Right now, we need oil and gas production to rise to meet current demand,” Granholm told hundreds of energy executives at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston, Texas.

"That means you producing more right now, where and if you can," Granholm said to them. "In this moment of crisis, we need more supply."

She specifically tied the dire need to increase oil production in order to help American families struggling with the high price of gas.

"We have to responsibly increase short term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and to minimize harm to American families," Granholm said.

That contrasted with a statement from President Joe Biden on Tuesday where he said gas prices were solely the fault of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"They're going to go up," he said to reporters about future gas prices. "Can't do much right now. Russia is responsible."

Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh made similar claims about Biden shutting down the Keystone Pipeline from Canada when he first entered office.

"Keystone has absolutely nothing to do with the current supply and demand in energy markets," Singh claimed on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC Wednesday.

"Keystone is a pipeline, it’s not an oil field. It doesn’t produce additional oil," he added. "Even if we drilled as much as we could, the price of oil is still set globally by the demand and supply conditions."

The same sentiment was also expressed by White House Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese on CNBC.

"There is no amount of domestic production that we can do when we're dealing with a volatile global commodity where the price is set globally, there is no amount of domestic production we can do to reduce or eliminate our vulnerability as a country to that volatility," said Deese.

"The only way to do that is to the energy intensity of the economy overall, which means shifting to cleaner sources of energy," he added.

Granholm was previously criticized in November when she responded with laughter to a question about how she plans to increase oil production.

Here's Granholm's statement to the media:

Gas prices and fuel costs will likely rise after Russian oil ban, Biden warnswww.youtube.com

Biden is getting torched on social media for begging dictators to produce more oil after criticizing US oil production



President Joe Biden is seeking to solve the oil crisis in the U.S. by begging foreign dictators and despots to increase their territories'' oil production and many on social media are torching him for it.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that they would not be seeking to increase domestic oil production and instead insisted that the crisis meant they should depend more on renewable sources.

“It’s a reminder that real energy security comes from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,” Psaki claimed. “The only way to protect U.S. over the long term is to become energy independent."

Oil prices have been skyrocketing since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Many in the U.S. are calling for the Biden administration to stop all oil imports from Russia while it continues to attack Ukrainian sovereignty.

Republicans and other critics of the administration criticized him on social media for seeking increased production from questionable foreign sources while seeking to shut down domestic producers of oil.

"It is wrong for the Biden Administration to beg for oil from Venezuela & legitimize Maduro’s communist regime during an official visit. The U.S. should hold Maduro accountable while increasing domestic energy production so we won’t need to rely on hostile regimes for energy," responded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

"Apparently Biden thinks producing more of our own oil in America is bad for the climate but somehow producing more oil in #Venezuela is not," tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

"Gas is up 13% in just the past week. What will it take for Joe Biden to increase oil production in America?" replied Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

"Gas wouldn’t be this expensive if Joe Biden opened up America’s oil pipelines," tweeted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). "Anyone telling you otherwise is lying."

"Biden should be turning to AMERICAN energy producers for more oil and gas—not dictators in Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia," tweeted Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).

"Joe Biden would rather get oil from socialists in Venezuela than from American workers in Texas," added Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas.)

"At this point, the Biden administration is actively considering incentivizing both Iranian oil and Venezuelan oil, but has thus far shown no interest in incentivizing *checks notes* American oil. Up is down. Down is up," said Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer.

While the administration is now blaming oil companies for the high price of gas and claiming their policies have not reduced production, Biden previously said that it would be necessary to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy.

Also on Monday, the stock market continued to collapse over fears due to inflation and the continuing invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Here's more about the rising gas prices:

Gas Tops $4 A Gallon As Fighting Between In Ukraine Continueswww.youtube.com

White House nixes idea of upping domestic oil production amid energy crisis



The White House on Sunday outright rejected the possibility of increasing domestic oil production to combat the ongoing energy crisis.

At the time of this reporting, crude oil prices have risen as high as $130 per barrel.

What are the details?

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday argued against the idea of increasing domestic oil production.

“It’s a reminder that real energy security comes from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels,” Psaki said and then hit out at those pushing to increase domestic output.

She continued, "[D]omestic production has not insulated us from the price volatility of fossil fuels or the whims of those who control them, such as President Putin. Americans know that.”

She added that the only way to avoid spiking oil prices was to become dependent on other sources of energy, including wind and solar panels.

“The only way to protect U.S. over the long term is to become energy independent,” she insisted.

What else?

Last week, Psaki said that calls to enhance domestic oil production are a "misdiagnosis."

"The way that the president, President Biden, has approached sanctions is we want to take every step to maximize the impact and the consequences on President Putin while minimizing the impact on the American people and the global community," Psaki said.

She added that calls to lift restrictions on oil drilling on federal land and demands to reopen the Keystone Pipeline were nothing more than a "misdiagnosis" of a solution.

"The Keystone Pipeline was not processing oil through the system. That does not solve any problems," she insisted. "That's a misdiagnosis or maybe a misdiagnosis of what needs to happen. I would also note that on oil leases, what this actually justifies in President Biden's view is the fact that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general ... and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others."

'That is hilarious': Energy Sec. Granholm laughs when asked what her plan is to boost US oil production



Americans have been feeling pain at the pump due to higher gas prices, but when Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked what her plan is to boost U.S. oil production, she laughed at the question.

"That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this. As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC," she said, noting that OPEC on Thursday chose not to boost production further than what had already been planned.

Rather than ramping up output, OPEC+ is just planning to "rollover its August program to gradually increase oil production by 400,000 barrels per day each month," according to CNBC.

Bloomberg's Tom Keene pressed the issue further by asking, "What is the Biden plan to jumpstart energy production across America?"

Granholm responded by discussing the need to transition toward clean energy, but acknowledged that this is "obviously a longer-term strategy."

"The Biden plan is to diversify and to make sure that we move in a direction of clean energy where we're not reliant upon cartels and we're not reliant upon geopolitical adversaries who may be creating chokepoints for our ability and our people to be able to access energy," she said.

Biden Is Looking at Possible SPR Release: Granholm www.youtube.com

Some Americans have attributed blame to the Biden administration for rising fuel costs.

While speaking to another interviewer on the same Bloomberg program, Granholm said, "We can't just produce oil for the United States. It is on a global market."

"There are 23 million acres of public lands — that includes offshore and onshore — where there are leases ... that are not being used right now by oil and gas companies," Granholm said.

"It is not the president's doing that is causing the oil and gas companies right now to decide to slow down," she claimed.

CNBC reported:

Asked by CNBC about the U.S.'s relationship with Saudi Arabia, the de-facto leader of OPEC, after the output decision, Granholm said: "In some places, we have strong relationships and in some places we wish our allies would move a little faster."

"The message is we need to increase supply at this moment so that people will not be hurt during the winter months," she told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick on Friday at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.