BLOOMBERG • April 15, 2022
President Joe Biden’s administration is dramatically curtailing U.S. public land available for new oil and gas development as it restarts leasing with new environmental protections. The shift is part of a Bureau of Land Management plan to resume selling drilling rights on government-managed federal lands concentrated in the western U.S. When the government holds those auctions, expected later this year, roughly 80% less land will be available for oil and gas leasing, the Interior Department said. Energy companies also will be forced to pay higher royalties for the oil and gas they extract from the newly leased land. The new leasing plan, which does not apply to U.S. coastal waters, falls far short of climate activists’ demands that the administration permanently block oil and gas development on public land.