Tag: Department of the Interior

House GOP Probes Biden Administration’s Opening of Public Lands to Potential Foreign Ownership

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Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee have launched an investigation of the Biden Administration’s proposal to open public lands to private ownership, which includes the possibility of foreigners buying such land.

According to Fox News, the effort is being led by Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), who informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the investigation’s launch. The proposed rule change from the SEC would allow for a new type of public company, referred to as Natural Asset Companies (NACs), to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

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‘Drones for Ducks:’ Federal Grants Fund Research to Use AI to Count Birds

The Center Square

How should researchers measure the populations of migratory birds? Researchers developed an idea around a campfire that was put to the test for the first time in Bosque Del Apache earlier this month, according to the University of New Mexico.

Each winter, wildlife managers must count migratory waterfowl as they fly down into refuges. However, this is a difficult task that involves scaring birds into the air by flying past them in airplanes.

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Biden Admin Has Issued Lowest Amount of Offshore Oil Permits in Almost 20 Years

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The Biden administration has approved a record low number of permits for new offshore oil wells since 2005, according to E&E News. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), a subagency of the Department of the Interior (DOI), approved 105 applications for permit to drill (APDs) combined in 2021 and 2022, President Joe Biden’s first two years in office, compared to 148 in former President Donald Trump’s first two years and 275 in the first two years of the Obama administration, according to E&E News. The Biden administration has described itself as responsible for the aggressive climate agenda in U.S. history, establishing goals to have the U.S. energy sector reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2035 and the overall economy achieve net-zero by 2050.

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Biden Admin Releases Most Restrictive Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Plan in U.S. History

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The Biden administration on Friday unveiled the most restrictive offshore oil and gas five-year leasing program in history.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) announced the plan, which allows for three offshore oil and gas lease sales through 2029, with sales in 2025, 2027 and 2029. That schedule represents the lowest number of sales that the administration could have pursued while maintaining its ability to push offshore wind development under provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and it is the “smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history,” according to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

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Biden Admin Shuts Down Future Oil and Gas Activity on Thousands of Acres

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The Biden administration announced Monday that it has moved to shut down future oil, gas and mining activity on thousands of acres of New Mexico land for the next 50 years.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a sub-agency of the Department of the Interior (DOI), issued the Monday proposal to block new oil, gas and mineral extraction activity on 4,000 acres of land in Sandoval County, New Mexico, according to a DOI press release. The proposal is motivated by the agency’s desire to safeguard tribal cultures and recreational activity in the area, and the policy would last for 50 years if finalized.

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Biden Approves ConocoPhillips Oil Project Over Green Group Objections

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The Biden administration formally approved Willow, an $8 billion oil drilling project located in Alaska, Monday morning over the objection of climate activists who lobbied heavily against it.

The massive project, operated by American energy firm ConocoPhillips, is projected to produce roughly 600 million barrels of oil over a 30-year lifespan, The New York Times reported. In a bid to placate environmentalists, the administration had considered limiting the project to just two drill sites, down from the five that ConocoPhillips initially proposed, but the company and Alaskan lawmakers warned that the project would need at least three to be economically viable, according to CNN.

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Arizona Gov Ducey Won’t Comply with Biden Administration Request to Remove Stopgap Border Wall

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Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey reportedly will not comply with a Biden administration request to remove rail containers put along its southern border to fill gaps in the U.S-Mexico wall and stop the flow of illegal migration.

The Interior Department in a letter last week asked that the double-stacked containers be removed and that no new ones be added. It also stated some are on the edge of an American Indian reservation and that the federal government either has a contract to fill the gaps or plans to do so, and that the containers are in the way of those projects.

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Republican Governor Sues Biden Admin for Refusing to Clean Up Native Americans’ Contaminated Lands

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Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska filed a complaint in Alaska’s United States District Court to compel the Department of the Interior (DOI) to take responsibility for hundreds of contaminated areas that the federal government transferred to Alaska Natives.

Dunleavy and the state of Alaska filed the lawsuit in mid-July as a last resort after the DOI allegedly ignored calls to identify and clean up 650 former federal military installations, oil drilling sites and other projects that are contaminating Native Alaskan lands, according to court filings. Despite the Biden administration’s emphasis on securing “environmental justice” for minority communities, the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), nor any other associated federal agency, is taking responsibility, the lawsuit alleges, allowing pollution and toxic waste to creep into natives’ food and water systems.

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Eco Activists Sue to Stop U.S. Oil and Gas Lease Sales

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Environmental groups sued the Interior Department Tuesday to challenge the first oil and gas lease sale on public lands during the Biden administration.

A coalition of environmental groups led by Dakota Resource Council filed a lawsuit in in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the sales violate the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which requires that the Interior Department prevent “unnecessary or undue degradation” of public lands.

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Biden Admin Considers Banning All Offshore Drilling as Energy Crisis Worsens: Report

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The Biden administration is mulling the prospect of banning new American offshore oil and natural gas drilling projects as fuel prices continue to spike, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, working closely with the White House to shape policy, will release its drafted five-year plan for new oil and gas drilling leases in federal waters to Congress by June 30, according to The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter. The administration is likely to stop new offshore drilling projects in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and is considering whether to end leasing in the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico.

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U.S. Relies on Russia for Key Materials in Defense Production

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The U.S. depends on Russia to supply key minerals used in technology and defense industries, but the Russia-Ukraine war and Western economic punishment of Russia have suppressed supply lines, according to a report from Defense News.

Russia and Ukraine supply a large percentage of minerals like neon and aluminum that the U.S. uses in civilian and military applications, Deborah Rosenblum, a Pentagon acting spokesperson who works on industrial base policy, told Defense News. Sanctions levied on Russian companies and a war-related drop in mineral production have put these supply chains in jeopardy, she said.

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Biden Is Still Trying to Ban Federal Oil, Gas Leasing

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The Biden administration asked a federal court this week to uphold its ban on new federal oil and gas leasing, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) court filings.

The administration argued the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana should toss an April 29 motion from more than a dozen states asking the presiding judge to permanently nix the leasing ban, according to the Monday filings. The Louisiana court placed an injunction on the ban in June 2021, forcing the federal government to hold oil and gas lease sales until a final ruling was issued in the case.

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Environmental Groups Sue Biden to Vacate Oil and Gas Permits as Gas Climbs over $5 per Gallon

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Amid an ongoing energy crisis nationwide, two environmental law groups are suing the Biden administration to block over 3,500 oil and gas leases that were previously greenlit in Wyoming and New Mexico.

Represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians are suing the Department of the Interior (DOI) and its Secretary Deb Haaland, as well as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and its Director Tracy Stone-Manning. The government is violating the Endangered Species Act and others, the groups alleged Wednesday.

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Biden’s Climate Office Is So Dysfunctional Even Leftists Want to Abolish It: Report

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Democrats and far-left climate activists have privately complained in recent weeks that the White House climate office is increasingly blocking key priorities, Politico reported.

The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy has prioritized politics ahead of actual progress on its own climate agenda, nine anonymous Democrats both inside and outside the White House told Politico. Some activists have even suggested that the office, headed by President Joe Biden’s climate czar Gina McCarthy, should be abolished altogether.

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Supreme Court Hands Biden Admin Major Win for Climate Agenda

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The Supreme Court denied a petition from 10 Republican-led states Thursday requesting it to block a key Biden administration climate policy.

The decision ensures that President Joe Biden’s so-called “social cost” of carbon policy — which assigns an estimated dollar value or cost to every ton of carbon emissions, according to the Government Accountability Office — can remain in place and be used for future federal permitting processes. The high court rejected states’ April 27 petition without giving a reason or listing which justices opposed it, according to a one-page filing published on the Supreme Court docket.

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Biden May Not Hold Any Offshore Oil and Gas Leases Until the End of His Term, Industry Group Says

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The American Petroleum Institute (API), a leading industry group, said the next offshore oil and gas lease sale likely wouldn’t come until early 2024 following the latest Biden administration update.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) announced Thursday that it would issue an updated proposed program plan for offshore lease sales by June 30. The API, though, said the announcement confirms the administration is “significantly behind” in the multi-year process required for approving a new five-year offshore plan, likely delaying lease sales until early 2024.

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Biden Administration Backtracks on Media Reports Signaling Oil, Gas Leasing Resumption

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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.

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Biden Administration Defies Court Ruling Again, Opts Against Holding Oil Drilling Sales

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The Biden administration missed another deadline to hold quarterly onshore oil drilling lease sales after a federal court ruled it was legally required to do so.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) defied the June 2021 court ruling which ordered the administration to halt its ban on new oil and gas leases, the Western Energy Alliance — a fossil fuel industry group that challenged the ban — said Wednesday. In August 2021, the DOI vowed to publish notices of competitive sales in December and hold a lease sale 45 days later, two promises it failed to keep, in court filings.

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Biden Administration Green-Lights Multiple Solar Projects to Power 274,000 Homes

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The Biden administration approved two solar projects, and it is nearing approval of a third, that will power hundreds of thousands of homes in California.

Construction of the Arica and Victory Pass solar projects — the two that received administration approval — will begin immediately on a large swath of land in Riverside County, California, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on Tuesday. Together, the projects will cost $689 million, be able to produce 465 megawatts of electricity, store 400 megawatts of energy and power 132,000 homes.

Oberon, the third solar project mentioned in the announcement, would be built on 2,700 acres of public lands in Riverside County if approved, according to DOI. The project would generate 500 megawatts of electricity and power an additional 142,000 households.

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Watchdog Demands Inspector General Investigation into Tracy Stone-Manning’s Allegedly False Statements About Eco-Terrorism Case

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A government watchdog group demanded that the Department of the Interior Inspector General launch an investigation into whether President Joe Biden’s Senate-confirmed Bureau of Land Management director nominee violated the False Statement Act with statements she made to Congress about her involvement in a 1989 eco-terrorism case during her confirmation process.

Tracy Stone-Manning was confirmed to lead the agency along a party-line vote on Sept. 30 amid strong opposition from Republicans who accused her of lying to the Senate Energy Committee about her involvement in an eco-terrorism case. Stone-Manning testified in federal court in 1993 that she sent an anonymous, threatening letter to the Forest Service in 1989 on behalf of her former roommate and friend which warned that a local forest in Idaho had been sabotaged with tree spikes to make the trees unsafe to log.

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‘Devastating’: Biden Ignores Lawmakers’ Pleas, Orders Massive Expansion of Utah Monuments

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President Joe Biden will order the Department of the Interior Friday to vastly expand two Utah monuments which the Trump administration reduced in size.

The president will restore protections for both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments located in Utah, the White House announced. Biden’s order will re-expand the monuments from their reduced size of slightly more than 1 million acres to 3.2 million acres.

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Oil Prices Hit a Seven-Year High as Industry Feud with Biden Administration Continues

The Center Square

Oil prices hit a 7-year high this week as American oil and gas companies continue to fight the Biden administration over policies restricting production.

As the economy began to reopen this year and the demand for fuel increased, President Joe Biden, through executive order, halted and restricted oil and gas leases on federal lands, stopped construction of the Keystone Pipeline, and redirected U.S. policy to import more oil from Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia (OPEC+) instead of bolstering American oil and gas exploration and production.

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Interior Department Announces Reforms to Endangered Species Act Procedures

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The Trump administration on Monday announced reforms to the Endangered Species Act that it says will “increase transparency and effectiveness” in the law’s implementation.

One of the reforms removes a blanket rule which treats protections for threatened species the same as endangered species. It will also require the same standards be used when officials consider delisting or reclassifying species.

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Judge Strikes Down Trump’s Deal with Alaskan Tribal Community to Deny Life-Saving Road

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by Tim Pearce   A federal judge vacated a land swap agreement Friday between an Alaskan village and the Department of the Interior because the federal government violated procedural law when making the deal. U.S. District Court of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason nullified a January 2018 deal that traded roughly 500 acres of federally protected wilderness to the community of King Cove, Alaska, in exchange for one acre to the Interior Department. At the time, Alaskan lawmakers and King Cove residents celebrated the agreement as the end of a four-decade battle. “This is a disappointing case and a disappointing ruling,” GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed off on the agreement, trading away some the 315,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in order for King Cove to finish construction on a road between the community and Cold Bay, roughly 30 miles away by land. Gleason sided with several environmental groups that sued the federal government over the deal, alleging Zinke “not only failed to provide the required level of detailed justification for reversing decades of prior findings, he provided no justification at all,” according to the judge’s decision, reported by the Anchorage Daily News. Gleason agreed with the environmentalists,…

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Sources: Zinke Deputy David Bernhardt Likely to be Named as Acting Secretary of the Interior

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by Michael Bastach   President Donald Trump will likely name David Bernhardt, the current number-two official at the Department of the Interior, as acting secretary until a full-time replacement can be found. One source close to the Trump administration said Bernhardt would be a likely pick, and Politico reported in October that Zinke appeared “to be laying the groundwork to hand the reins to Bernhardt.” Bloomberg reported Saturday that Bernhardt was Zinke’s “likely successor,” poised to take over as acting head of the Interior Department. Trump announced Zinke’s resignation Saturday morning, and said he would announce his pick to replace the former Navy SEAL in the coming week. Trump also thanked Zinke for his service. Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years. Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation……. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2018 Zinke faced multiple investigations, mounting legal costs and pressure to resign from House Democrats. Zinke claimed allegations brought against him were politically-motivated, but they seemed too much to overcome. Bernhardt is a convenient choice for the president having…

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Zinke Ends Obama-Era Policy Requiring Energy Companies Fund Environmental ‘Mitigation’ Projects

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Ryan Zinke

by Tim Pierce   The Department of the Interior (DOI) is scrapping an Obama-era policy mandating energy companies mitigate development on federal land by funding offsite environmental projects. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — a DOI-controlled agency and the largest land-owning agency in the U.S. — began forcing oil, gas and coal companies to pay mitigation fees to the BLM or a third party under former President Barack Obama. The fees would be used to fund environmental projects such as restoring habitat or protecting wetlands. The size of the fee was calculated by the BLM to cover the damage done by the proposed development. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke retracted the policy in a memo to the BLM Tuesday. “This policy means that Americans … who want to use their public lands will no longer be required to pay money to BLM or third parties as a form of ‘mitigation’ when they seek new permits from BLM,” DOI spokeswoman Faith Vander Voort told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “BLM will continue to require project proponents to avoid or minimize actual harm on public lands as appropriate.” “This policy also does not affect State mitigation programs, or compensatory mitigation under other federal laws,”…

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After 150 Years, Secretary Zinke Unveils Plan to Reorganize the Department of Interior

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Ryan Zinke

By Printus LeBlanc   When Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke was sworn in, he came into a department that has not reorganized in 150 years. However, in the same timeframe new agencies were created, miles of red tape were introduced, and volumes of rules were added. The mammoth bureaucracy and inefficiencies have made the department one of the more despised government arms. Secretary Zinke sees that as a challenge and has embarked on an ambitious reorganization mission to make Interior more user friendly and less hostile to the people it is supposed to serve. The Department of Interior is responsible for conservation and management of most federal land and natural resources. The agency is operating in 2,400 locations with over 70,000 employees around the U.S. Interior sites get over 500 million visitors to them each year. Everything from the food in the grocery store to the raw materials used to make used to make Navy ships has at some point fallen under the purview of Interior. It would not be a stretch to say the department touches more lives everyday than any other federal agency, with the exception of the IRS. For this reason, it is important the agency run smooth…

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The Department of the Interior Will Pay 1,900 Local Governments $553 Million in ‘Lost Tax Revenue’ in 2018

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federal lands

by Daniel Di Martino   Over 1,900 local governments received $553 million from the Department of Interior this year to compensate them for lost tax revenue for federal lands that cannot be developed in their territory. These payments are the consequence of more than 640 million acres of land, which amounts to 28 percent of the U.S. territory owned by the federal government. The Federal Government Is Hoarding Huge Potential Prosperity The costs of federal ownership are not only payments to local governments but also environmental damage due to mismanagement and deferred maintenance, as well as the lost economic activity that cannot occur in 28 percent of the country. Of all federal land, 27.4 million acres are National Parks, while approximately 600 million acres are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. These government agencies allow grazing and other economic activities on federal lands in exchange for fees. However, since fees are not enough for the expenses of these agencies, the federal government spends several billion dollars per year to cover the difference. Additionally, the federal government owns more than three trillion barrels of oil and 450 trillion cubic meters of natural…

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The Omnibus Prevents Sage Grouse from Obtaining Endangered Species Listing Status, But an Obama-Era Land Grab Is Still in Place

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By Natalia Castro   For years, a bird has been the most expensive drain on the Midwest’s economy. The greater sage grouse is not listed as an endangered animal under the Endangered Species Act, but this has not prevented the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from placing significant restrictions on business and lifestyle throughout the Midwest in an attempt to protect this notably flamboyant bird. One of few bright spots in Congress’s recently passed budget was a rider preventing the bird from being listed under the ESA due to its vast protections, but more must be done to ensure an overpopulated bird cannot undermine the economic development of several western states. Finalized in 2015 through the Obama Administration’s Department of Interior, the sage grouse protection plan was a large scale federal conservation plan to preserve a bird that was not even threatened enough to land on the endangered species list. At the time, Department of Interior Secretary Jewell called the plan “historic,” as it dedicated 5.5 million acres of land across ten states to conservation efforts. As it became quickly clear, environmentalists were the only ones singing praises to this plan. University of Idaho economist Neil Rimbey explained to the Capital…

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