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The Biden administration Friday rolled out three decisions aimed at greatly restricting oil and gas drilling, as well as mining activities needed for renewable energy, on public land. The decisions include shutting down the Ambler Access Road project, which would have opened up part of Alaska to mining needed for renewable energy, and blocking oil and gas drilling on up to 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Conservation Leases The third action the Interior Department took Friday was the finalizing of the Public Lands Rule. According to a statement from the Department of the Interior, the rule is...

The Biden administration on Wednesday barred drilling and mining in a Colorado landscape known as the Thompson Divide, an area of mountaintops, foothills and valleys in the center of the state. The administration said it would bar drilling and mining in 221,898 acres of the divide’s lands for 20 years as part of an effort to preserve it for the future. “The Thompson Divide area is a treasured landscape, valued for its wildlife habitat, clean air and water, and abundant recreation, ecological and scenic values,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a written statement. “The Biden-Harris administration is committed to...

In a significant ruling late Thursday, Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana sided with American energy advocates, striking down the Biden administration’s eleventh-hour restrictions on a pending offshore oil and gas lease sale. The injunction, favoring the plaintiffs – the State of Louisiana, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and energy giants Chevron and Shell – puts a halt on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) restrictive measures concerning Lease Sale 261. This crucial sale, encompassing vast expanses in the Gulf of Mexico, was scheduled for the following week. The ruling by Judge Cain reiterates the federal...

Last week, Joe Biden canceled all drilling in Alaska on federal land. Separate from the fact that no president should have that kind of power over the American economy and lifestyle, he paired it with another executive order that will make fuel more expensive than Americans have ever imagined. Joe Biden promised during his basement campaign for the presidency that he was going to “end fossil fuel”:The former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate made the comment Friday after a New Hampshire environmental activist challenged him for accepting donations from the co-founder of liquified natural gas firm.Biden denied the donor’s...

As part of a massive, pre-holiday weekend document dump by the Biden administration on June 30, the domestic oil and gas industry received an unwelcome gift from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), one that shifts Mr. Biden’s continuing war on oil and gas to the Permian Basin. In a notice published in the Federal Register, USFWS said it has determined a need to list the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, long a topic of concern and controversy, as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Though a day past deadline, the notice of proposed listing will presumably satisfy a...

resident Biden’s comment that he had “practically” declared a climate emergency is reigniting calls on the left for him to actually take such action. The White House has not announced any explicit climate emergency declarations. Biden appeared poised to do so last year when talks on his signature climate legislation stalled, but he did not ultimately take the step. After the president was asked during a recent Weather Channel interview if he was prepared to declare a climate emergency, however, he at first said he already had. When pressed, he said he had done so “in practice” and practically speaking....

During an interview with The Weather Channel that is set to air on Wednesday, a portion of which aired on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that he “wanted to stop all drilling on the East Coast and the West Coast and in the Gulf” but was blocked by the courts from doing so. Weather Channel Meteorologist Stephanie Abrams asked, “Let’s talk Gen Z, because they’re going to play a big role in the next presidential election, and many of them are angry about the 7,000 oil and gas permits you approved since you’ve been in office. You promised no new...

Native American activists verbally clashed outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday, derailing a visit by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who was there to celebrate a 20-year buffer around a World Heritage Site in northwest New Mexico. Haaland’s trip to Chaco on Sunday was canceled when a group of Navajo land allotment owners blocked the road, upset with the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile buffer around the World Heritage site. The buffer protects the area from future federal mineral development, including oil and gas drilling....

The Biden administration on Friday ordered a 20-year ban on new oil and gas drilling leases within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, according to multiple reports. The moratorium — which the Department of Interior initially began considering in November 2021 — is a long-sought goal of several local politicians, conservation groups and Native American tribes that want to preserve the centuries-old Pueblo ruins located there, although some tribes have opposed the ban for limiting future economic opportunities, according to E&E News. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, herself New Mexican and the nation’s first Native...

As more drilling and mining projects are approved in Alaska, local trucking fleets are planning to hire drivers around the United States to haul equipment, chemicals and other loads — particularly on its fearsome Dalton Highway, a remote, 414-mile road that connects Fairbanks to oil fields near the Arctic Ocean. The developments, particularly ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project, have been controversial as they may mar some of Earth’s most remote land. However, for the residents of the United States’ third-least-populated state, the new investments could bring an economic boom that many locals say the state needs. The construction of the Trans-Alaska...

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) issued a scathing rebuke Monday of President Joe Biden’s administration after it approved a scaled-down version of an oil drilling project in a petroleum-rich region of northern Alaska. Markey, a climate hawk and cosponsor of the failed Green New Deal, called the administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, a multibillion-dollar oil drilling endeavor in the federal North Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a “disastrous decision.”

Key PointsThe Biden administration on Wednesday recommended a scaled-down version of a major oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska, taking a step toward approving the $8 billion Willow plan that climate groups have long condemned.The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management released an environmental analysis that proposes lowering the number of drilling sites from five to three under the project, which is led by ConocoPhillips, Alaska's largest crude oil producer.The federal government has 30 days to issue a final decision on whether to approve the project. President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday recommended a scaled-down version of...

This is a story that most of you are familiar with by now. Ever since taking office, Joe Biden has received complaints about the high price of gasoline and other fuels as well as the slow collapse of America’s energy grid. Critics point to Biden’s own policies, specifically the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline and his failure to issue any more drilling permits beyond the bare minimum mandated by law. (And he’s missed some of those targets as well.) In response, Biden points the finger of blame at the oil and gas industry, claiming that the oil companies are...

close Alaska leaders demand Biden administration 'not kill' oil drilling project The Biden administration quietly updated a federal database showing how many unused oil and gas drilling permits it has approved, reducing the number by more than 2,000. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revised the current number of approved applications for permits to drill (APD) — which oil and gas companies are required to file once they identify a deposit on a lease that can be tapped — down from an estimated 9,000 to less than 6,700. The BLM, a subagency of the Department of the Interior (DOI), blamed...

A catastrophic leak from a natural gas storage field in Cambria County likely released over one billion cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The incident demonstrates the importance of tracking — and punishing — methane emissions, a priority recently moved forward by both Congress and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It also shows the urgency of implementing state-level regulations to control methane emissions from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry. Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and is fifty times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. While CO2 grabs the headlines, CH4...

The city council of Los Angeles, once a hub of the American oil industry, voted 10-0 on Tuesday to instruct the city attorney to prepare an ordinance that would ban oil drilling within a city that is still dotted with pumpjacks. The Los Angeles Daily News reported: The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a similar ordinance earlier in October. The City Council in January unanimously approved a series of recommendations aimed at banning new oil and gas wells. The draft ordinance would phase out all such oil and gas extraction activities by immediately banning new oil and gas...

President Joe Biden complained that oil companies were not drilling enough for oil, despite his long history of trying to block oil and gas production in the United States. “We haven’t slowed them down at all, they should be drilling more than they’re doing now,” Biden said. “If they were drilling more we’d have more relief at the pump.”

After releasing the most oil ever from the U.S. emergency petroleum reserve, the Biden administration is signaling it will refill soon, a multibillion-dollar undertaking that it hopes will rouse sluggish domestic drilling activity. The pitch is likely to be a hard sell for many domestic producers, say industry executives and analysts. “It’s a little bit more [complex] than this,” said Olivier Le Peuch, chief executive of oil-field services company Schlumberger Ltd. On Wednesday, President Biden said for the first time that the Energy Department would begin purchasing oil to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil prices are $67...

President Biden today is scheduled to designate the new Camp Hale ━ Continental Divide National Monument during a visit to Colorado in which the Biden administration also plans to announce a proposal to withdraw more than 200,000 acres in the Thompson Divide area southwest of Glenwood Springs from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims.

Liz Truss vows ‘never again’ on exorbitant energy bills Prime Minister pledges to ‘revolutionise’ supply as she takes action to ease household fuel crisis. Britons must never again be forced to pay exorbitant energy bills, Liz Truss will declare on Thursday as she promises more North Sea drilling and ditches the fracking ban.