Free Republic

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...

Biden administration is 'sowing the seeds for the next energy crisis' by blocking oil and gas leases despite wars in Mideast and Europe threatening energy flows, top US trade group warns White House under pressure to halt oil and gas leases over global warming fears The Biden administration is 'sowing the seeds for the next energy crisis' by restricting America's oil and gas sector even as wars in the Middle East and Europe threaten supply shocks, the head of a top trade group has warned. Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), issued a stark warning that the...

House Bill 621, sponsored by Republican Florida state Rep. Kevin Steele, was put forward in response to Jacksonville resident Patti Peeples, who made national headlines earlier this year when several squatters moved into her Jacksonville property and caused nearly $40,000 in damages. Peeples first discovered that two female squatters broke into a rental property she owned after she sent a handyman to make repairs in anticipation of a home inspection after she showed an interested buyer the home 48 hours before.

Biden seeks to all but end an oil and gas leasing program.. ... during his first 19 months in office, Joe Biden leased fewer federal lands for oil and gas development than only one since the end of World War II. ... Last month, in a throwback to the days of Harry Truman, Biden released his statutorily required five-year OCS leasing plan, which all but ends the OCS oil and gas program. Following President Trump’s planned eleven OCS lease sales, Biden proposed only three, one each in 2025, 2027, and 2029. Biden wanted even fewer sales; .. blaming the courts...

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...

The Interior Department announced Wednesday it will cancel the last remaining oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and move to restrict drilling on 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

The surge in remote work, and a decline in demand for office space, during the COVID-19 pandemic has apparently wiped an estimated $453 billion off commercial real-estate value. That's not good news for investors and pension funds relying on the value of these buildings. The US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) came up with the figure, and is predicting what it calls an "office real estate apocalypse." While it focused its work on New York City, data from 105 office markets throughout America between 2000 and 2022 was included in a report this fall. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak,...

Some of the Democrats who have been spiking the ball in the end zone after the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” probably didn’t read all of the finer details in the bill. They’ve been celebrating its passage along with Joe Biden as the “biggest climate legislation” to ever be passed. They have also been grudgingly thanking West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin for getting the bill over the finish line. But it turns out that Manchin snuck in a few items that haven’t drawn many headlines yet and the climate warriors aren’t going to be very happy about them....

A federal judge Thursday issued a permanent injunction against the Biden administration’s pause of new oil and gas leasing in federal lands.The injunction applies to the 13 states that sued the Biden administration over the moratorium in March 2021, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.Terry Doughty, the U.S. district judge for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled that the White House overreached in the ban.President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14008 on Jan. 27, 2021, banning all new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters. The...

(Reuters) - The Bureau of Land Management will pause oil and gas leasing on 2.2 million acres of Colorado public land after environmental groups alleged its current management plan failed to consider climate impacts, according to a settlement. The agreement was filed Thursday in Colorado federal court and requires the government to conduct a new environmental analysis of the climate impacts of oil and gas leasing on public lands in southwestern Colorado. The government also agreed to consider how the leases may impact the endangered Gunnison sage- grouse and its habitat. The Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity and others...

The deal that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin reached with Majority Leader Charles Schumer that contains billions for clean energy programs also would mandate offshore oil and gas drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, the package commits Democratic leaders to moving new legislation to streamline permitting process for pipelines and other projects – a move Manchin called essential to his own backing for the package, which would include $433 billion in new spending as well as $739 billion in new revenue over a decade. 'Without what you just mentioned there is no bill,' Manchin told MetroNews in...

Conservation and clean-air groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s resumption of oil and gas leasing on public lands. Oil and gas industry groups argue opening up more public lands for drilling will increase global supplies. A new lawsuit hopes to reverse the BLM's recent approval of oil and gas lease sales on public lands across eight western states, including nearly 120-thousand acres in Wyoming, in part to protect public health. Melissa Hornbein, with the Western Environmental Law Center, said regions surrounding federal oil and gas production face dangerous air quality issues—due to methane leaks, ground-level ozone, and...

It's a lengthy commentary but this one shreds the endless stream of nonsense the Biden administration has manufactured in a pathetic attempt to cover for their serial failure on gas prices, inflation, and the supply chain fiasco. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went on a near 20-minute tear into this administration. Carlson knows the Left hates him. His segment served as another reminder of why they hate him—and it’s something he wears with pride. He eviscerates all their narratives with ease. Carlson explained what we all know which is that Biden’s energy policy is grounded in intentional harm. The Green Left...

The same corrupt Obama judge who lawlessly nullified the November 2021 Gulf of Mexico lease sale, blocked lease sales in Wyoming, may have signed fraudulent FISA warrants in the Russia collusion hoax and attempted to unlawfully persecute General Michael Flynn, has now brokered a deal between the rabidly anti-American Biden Interior Department and an Enviromarxist terrorist organization to potentially retroactively cancel over 2,000 oil & gas leases in Wyoming… All because climate change.

The Interior Department on Friday announced another round of oil and gas lease sales on public lands as well as an increase in royalty rates. The administration initially froze new leasing on public lands shortly after President Biden took office, but a federal district court that summer issued an injunction against the order. The department cited that injunction in announcing the lease sales. In the announcement, the department said the Interior Department will issue final sales notices for the upcoming sales Monday. The Interior Department also announced a royalty hike, increasing rates from 12.5 to 18.75 percent. “How we manage...

The Biden administration doesn’t anticipate selling offshore drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico through at least October 2023, effectively stretching a delay in that activity to a third year, according to economic projections included in its newly released budget proposal.

The Biden administration backtracked on reports that it is resuming the federal oil and gas leasing program in light of a recent appeals court decision. On Friday, Reuters reported that the Department of the Interior (DOI), the agency tasked with overseeing the leasing program, was planning to resume the previously-delayed program. But a DOI spokesperson pushed back on the report, saying it overstated the administration’s position that it would begin planning the next steps, not that it had already resumed the program. “The article overstates our next steps (we did not say we were resuming leasing but instead the planning),”...

he number of oil rigs operating in North America fell this week, the second decline over the past three weeks amid elevated oil prices. The number of oil rigs fell from 869 to 839 due to a decline in Canadian oil rigs from 207 to 176, according to oil services giant Baker Hughes. U.S. oil rigs were unchanged at 663 and Gulf of Mexico rigs climbed by one to 12. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude contracts rose nearly 1.4 percent to close on Friday at $104.43. The U.S. average for a gallon of gasoline was $4.274, a penny...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — In the closing months of the Trump administration, energy companies stockpiled enough drilling permits for western public lands to keep pumping oil for years and undercut President-elect Joe Biden's plans to curb new drilling because of climate change, according to public records and industry analysts. An Associated Press analysis of government data shows the permit stockpiling has centered on oil-rich federal lands in New Mexico and Wyoming. It accelerated during the fall as Biden was cementing his lead over President Donald Trump and peaked in December, aided by speedier permitting approvals since Trump took office. The...

The Biden-Harris administration issued a report Friday to increase the price of oil leasing fees on federal lands in the United States by 50 percent—even while accusing oil companies of artificially increasing prices through illegal and anticompetitive actions.Despite record-high gasoline prices impacting American families across the country with winter around the corner, the Biden-Harris administration is recommending Congress hike the cost of oil leases on government lands from 12.50 percent to 18.75 percent.The 6.25 percentage point royalty rate increase on oil companies would contradict the administration’s promise to lower gasoline prices. In recent weeks, the Biden-Harris administration has asked OPEC...