Polls continue to show that Biden is keeping at least one campaign promise. He is unifying the nation….against him, as is shown by the most recent polls showing hemorrhaging support for the occupant of the White House.
Just a third of all Americans (33%) approve of how President Biden is handling his job responsibilities, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, the commander-in-chief’s worst performance yet in the benchmark survey.On the flip side, 54% percent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s performance, with 43% saying that they “strongly” disapproved. By contrast, just 18% said they strongly approved of the 46th president.Thirteen percent said they didn’t know or declined to answer the question, the highest percentage in the survey since January.Biden’s approval rating among registered voters is little better, sitting at 35% — another low for the survey and down 17 percentage points from his high approval rating in February 2021.
The rising cost of energy, which is feeding historic inflation and hurting the American middle class, is a significant, contributing factor to the tanking approval. As a result, Biden is ditching another of campaign promise by resuming oil and gas leases on federal lands.
The Biden administration quietly announced Friday that it was restarting the sale of oil and gas leases on federal land next week — almost exactly 15 months after President Biden imposed a moratorium on such sales upon taking office.The announcement of the pending sales by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) represents an about-face by the White House, which had resisted pressure from energy companies to open up more land for drilling, instead insisting that thousands of previously approved leases were going unused.The renewed lease sales are the latest move by the Biden administration to shore up the country’s energy supply as the average price of a gallon of gas remains stubbornly above $4.
However, the plan isn’t without a few, pesky strings attached. Higher fees, for example.
In opening up the new public lands for oil and gas permitting, the Interior Department will raise the royalty rates that companies must pay to the federal government to 18.75 percent of their revenues from 12.5 percent, an increase that could bring in billions of dollars for the federal government. Even at current levels, the royalties are a major source of revenue. Last year, the federal government collected $5.5 billion from drilling on public lands.
The amount of land that is potentially can be leased has been significantly curbed.
The bureau will offer around 173 parcels on roughly 144,000 acres of federal land, which Interior said is an 80% reduction from the acreage originally being considered for leasing. Interior said it reduced the amount of land being offered after “robust environmental review” and engagement with Native tribes and local communities.
And, despite the land limits and increase royalties, green justice groups are complaining bitterly about the move.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, slammed the Biden administration’s decision.“The Biden administration’s claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director for the group. “It’s as if they’re ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods and megadroughts, and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual.”
Biden’s problem is that he has no base of support. The is no hard limit to how far down in the polls he can go. It will interesting to see how much father the numbers can plunge. Under 30% may be coming up soon.
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