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Biden Administration’s Successful War on American Energy Industry

Biden Administration’s Successful War on American Energy Industry

This week brought a pause on Colorado oil leases, the end to a natural gas pipeline’s construction in Idaho & Wyoming, and the return of a ban on coal sales from federal lands.

While the media has distracted the nation with tales of the Great Mar-a-Lago Raid, Biden’s team of green justice advocates have managed to wage a very successful war on the nation’s energy industry.

To begin with, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just paused oil and gas leasing on 2.2 million acres of Colorado public land.

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 said in an August 2020 lawsuit that BLM had violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of its leasing decisions, when it approved the current 20-year plan.

The groups said the decision to allow leasing on these public lands would aggravate the climate crisis and that it would be “impossible” to address that impact without “completely transforming the way public lands are managed for fossil fuel exploitation.”

The groups also said the government failed to adequately consider the impacts leasing would have on the survival and recovery of the threatened Gunnison sage-grouse.

Next, the U.S. Forest Service and two environmental groups agreed to stop the 50-mile (80-kilometer) Crow Creek Pipeline Project, which would have created a natural gas pipeline from Idaho to Wyoming.

The Forest Service agreed to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement before authorizing the project that partially crosses Forest Service land. The timeline for completing the environmental study isn’t clear.

Wyoming-based Lower Valley Energy wants to build the pipeline that would start near Montpelier, Idaho, and run to Afton, Wyoming. But the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection say it will harm protected grizzly bears and other wildlife.

Finally, a federal judge has reinstated a moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands imposed under former Obama and then scuttled under former President Donald Trump.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Brian Morris requires government officials to conduct a new environmental review before they can resume coal sales from federal lands. Morris faulted the government’s previous review of the program, done under Trump, for failing to adequately consider the climate damage from coal’s greenhouse gas emissions and other effects.

Almost half the nation´s annual coal production – some 260 million tons last year – is mined by private companies from leases on federal land, primarily in Western states such as Wyoming, Montana and Colorado.

…The coal program brought in about $400 million to federal and state coffers through royalties and other payments in 2021, according to government data. It supports thousands of jobs and has been fiercely defended by industry representatives, Republicans in Congress and officials in coal- producing states.

Credit where credit is due: Biden and the Democrats have waged a successful war. Unfortunately, it is against the American energy industry.

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Comments

Biden WH – Energy companies must do more to provide the oil and gas America needs today as we transition to green energy instead of price gouging consumers.

Also Biden WH – Don’t drill there or there and certainly not there. No, you can’t complete your pipelines.

They’re also enjoying a great deal of success in their war on our food supply.

Colonel Travis | August 15, 2022 at 5:49 pm

That Wyoming pipeline that would wipe out grizzly bears – tell me how it will do that?

    Ironclaw in reply to Colonel Travis. | August 15, 2022 at 6:59 pm

    That must be one hell of a pipeline if it’s going to up and swat grizzlies down.

    I remember being a kid, right about the time I was first becoming aware of politics, when the Alaska Pipeline was being built, and the enviro-wackos were pulling out all the stops trying to squash it. One big argument was that the pipeline was going to kill the caribou.

    Later, after the pipeline was up and running, they discovered that the caribou liked to huddle under the elevated sections of the pipeline because they could find warmth there. It helped them survive the brutally cold Alaska winters.

      theyeti in reply to Paul. | August 16, 2022 at 3:05 pm

      Everybody knows the proliferation of the caribou and their voracious appetite is directly responsible for the imminent demise of the flower tundra plants.

Forward-looking risk with progressive returns.

I have heard that 50% of coal for power plants comes from public lands, now closed off by diktat. Out electric prices are going to skyrocket.

It’s easy to have a successful war when your enemy’s hands are tied, he has no weapons, and no avenue of retreat.

Political patriots need to ensure they never find themselves in like situation.

And the republican party is absolutely silent.

The Feds are also going after the world’s largest oil field in the West Texas area. That will hurt.

Please remember, Slow Joe, during one of his forays out of the basement, said his regime would eliminate fossil fuels.

Then he received the most votes in history.

Guess what, the Fed’s can go pound sand. [Most] American’s demand energy independence like we were under PDJT, and would support the energy sector to defy this destructive hamstringing crap, then get rolling and start up the drills and pumps.

What’s Biden et al going to do, send in the Gestapo? They will be met with a larger opposing force yelling “Get off my lawn!”…”You don’t own the land, WE DO!”