Trump charges forward with December fossil fuel leasing on public lands

TO:                 Energy and Environment Reporters

FROM:           Tony Iallonardo, TWS

This week the Interior Department is leasing more federal public lands to the oil and gas industry. These sales cap off a year of auctions in pursuit of so-called “energy dominance” and amid dire warnings from federal scientists.

Among the findings from last month’s climate reports, the USGS concluded that nearly a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are being emitted on federal lands. Sadly, climate change hasn’t been factored into a relentless chain of oil and gas lease sales, with  more than 3.1 million acres in 12 states, including the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska going on the block this month.

Even before the Trump administration took the reins, limited data on federal fossil fuel resources and production was publicly available, and until the USGS report, there was  no systematic effort to track or disclose the carbon consequences of energy leasing on public lands. However under Trump, the situation has been exacerbated as land management agencies have been directed to ignore commonsense guidance for estimating carbon emissions and climate impacts for energy leases.

How much has been offered for leasing so far? As of September 2018, President Trump had offered 13,667,241 acres of publicly-owned land to oil and gas companies. That is more than the size of Maryland and New Jersey combined. Most of the lands offered for leasing in the lower 48 states are in the top 25 percent of wildest places in the contiguous U.S. and the top 25 percent most important areas for wildlife connectivity. Off our coasts, President Trump has offered 81,324,267 acres of publicly-owned waters to oil and gas companies.

When will the sales happen?

The lease sales have been made public on state BLM web pages as of last October, and were formally noticed and posted on EnergyNet, the online service that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) uses for lease sales. In sum, 298,000 acres will be offered across 11 states in the contiguous United States. An additional 2.85 million acres are set to be sold in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Individual state sales were held on December 5th and 6th in New Mexico (which includes Texas and Oklahoma), and will be held December 11th in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Utah, and December 13th in Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Mississippi.   

The Climate Impact of Leasing is Staggering

While the cumulative climate impact of these lease sales has not been calculated, the magnitude can be identified by looking at what analysis has been done. In New Mexico, where almost 87,000 acres were offered last week, the BLM estimated that the lifecycle GHG emissions (emissions resulting from the development and end-use combustion of oil and gas produced from these leases over their lifetimes) will result in 121,832,090 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is the same climate impact as driving 26 million cars for a year (or 30 coal fired power plants operating for a year or the energy use of 13 million average households for a year). And that’s from just this single December lease sale in New Mexico.

What has changed to open the leasing floodgates?

The Interior Department has issued a number of policy changes and directives under Zinke’s watch that are leading to increased leasing, with one notable theme: shutting the public out. Secretary Zinke has made it harder and harder for citizens and local communities to raise concern, and is simultaneously pushing BLM to lease more and more as fast as possible:

Lease as fast as possible. Most notably, Interior issued a new oil and gas leasing policy this past January, which directs BLM state offices to review proposed leasing parcels within six months of receiving interest from a company. This is hardly enough time to review proposals in higher conflict areas where more thorough environmental analysis is necessary and solicit input from impacted communities.

Lease as much as possible. Under the previous policy, BLM was taking a more thoughtful approach to leasing that required conducting environmental analysis and soliciting public input. BLM was rotating lease sales among field offices to give the offices ample time to review proposed parcels, make site visits if necessary, consult with local governments and other agencies and take public comments throughout the process.

The new policy directs BLM to minimize environmental analysis as much as possible, and removes requirements to provide for public comments. The policy also put an end to rotating lease sales, so now every lease sale includes all of the eligible parcels across the whole state, leading to large lease sales and less time for both the agency and the public to review them.

The legality of the policy has already been questioned. A judge in Idaho ordered that BLM reinstate the Obama-era policy to allow more public comment opportunities for leases in sage grouse habitat after a lawsuit was filed by Western Watersheds Project.

Less scrutiny, more politics. In addition, under the previous policy, BLM was given permission to defer parcels if the agency determined the public interest would be better served by further analysis and planning prior to making any decision whether or not to lease. But now under DOI’s new policy guidance, BLM has been highly encouraged to not defer parcels and must get the approval of Sec. Zinke and his political team in D.C.  before doing so.

10 days to review hundreds of thousands of acres proposed for lease. Under the new policy, BLM is not required to share any information with the public about parcels being offered for sale until the agency posts a sale notice 45 days prior to the lease sale, for a 10-day protest period. This means the public - and local governments - could have no opportunity to weigh in until the formal protest period, and at that point would have only 10 days to review an entire lease sale. This worst case scenario played out in the Nevada September lease sale, where BLM posted no information whatsoever about the sale until the protest period began in late July, and the public had just 10 days to review nearly 300,000 thousand acres of public land being proposed for lease.

Americans oppose indiscriminate drilling and want climate action

Polling is pretty clear on what Americans want from their public lands. Americans do not support unneeded, unwise, and indiscriminate oil and gas drilling on federal land and are increasingly frustrated with the administration’s inaction.

A recent climate change poll by Monmouth University found two-thirds of Republicans and more than three-quarters of Americans believe climate change is happening. The Guardian in reporting on the poll wrote that by rescinding environmental protections and expanding fossil fuel use that causes warming, “Trump’s position and his efforts are not in line with public opinion. A large majority of Americans support action by the US government to slow climate change.”

While there are several national polls showing broad support for sound science-based conservation, the most recent comes from a poll of mountain west states that found:

• 70 percent oppose opening public lands close to national parks and monuments for oil and gas drilling.
• 67 percent oppose increasing public land available for oil and gas development by reducing conservation efforts on behalf of potentially endangered wildlife, like the sage-grouse, and
• 64 percent oppose rolling back environmental regulations on oil and gas development.

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For more information, contact tony_iallonardo@tws.org.