Branded Blog

The Biden War on American Energy – The Process is the Punishment

By Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (WY-AL)

Joe Biden and his administration are waging a large-scale and aggressive assault on American Energy.  Our federal government has gone to war on extraction, development, transport, and use of anything related to fossil fuels – and it’s a war being fought on multiple fronts. One of the most egregious examples of this administration blocking our ability to access our energy resources is by abusing and distorting the federal permitting and leasing process.

With the Biden administration it is fair to say that “the process is the punishment.” Such processes are now longer, more complicated, more rife with uncertainty, and intentionally designed to restrict our ability to access new sources of energy production. The Biden administration’s agenda of blockading domestic energy production is evident in the fact that it has issued fewer oil and gas leases than any president since World War II.

In Fiscal Year 2022, the Biden Administration approved an average of only 233 permits per month. In FY2020, over 400 permits were approved each month. As of today, nearly 5,000 permit applications are pending – and this administration is doing nothing to move them forward.  Again, the “process is the punishment.”  Oil and gas leases have declined by 97% as compared to this point in Donald Trump’s presidency.

Coal generates more than a quarter of America’s electricity; 41% of that total is produced in Wyoming.  To say that coal production is under constant attack is an understatement.  While DC bureaucrats do everything in their power to destroy our coal industry, China proceeds on its merry way, permitting an average of two new coal plants per week. Even In Canada and Australia – two “woke” countries who have bought into “climate change” hook, line and sinker – they are able to permit a mine in less than three years.  In the United States it takes more than ten years, and the time frame only increases with each passing year. How can we compete with foreign and hostile regimes when our own government is working against us?

When, or if, a permit is actually issued then the litigation starts. Activist groups file lawsuits in courts where activist judges preside – making the process even longer and more expensive as many cases end up in our “sue and settle” system, whereby the federal government acquiesces in the environmentalists’ demands, pays their costs and attorneys’ fees, and saddles the American public with unreliable energy. 

While the raw statistics are eye-opening, it is the real-life examples that these permitting and leasing issues have on Wyoming that put this all in perspective.

In Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has halted approvals of drilling permits in response to five lawsuits brought by environmental groups. Collectively, these lawsuits challenged 18 lease sales in my state, with some lease sales being subject to multiple lawsuits. Of the 18 challenged sales in Wyoming, seven sales are subject to a court order preventing BLM from approving development. What is even more frustrating is that the remaining 11 lease sales are not subject to any injunction, court-ordered cancellation, or suspension preventing BLM from approving drilling permits. BLM is instead choosing to forbid drilling to take place. Cumulatively, the BLM is withholding 2,150,844 acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming for the foreseeable future, preventing development of these areas for an infinite period. 

Should the administration approve a drilling permit, and it isn’t encumbered by an environmental lawsuit filed immediately after approval, there are numerous permitting hoops that will similarly stall our energy production. For onshore production, the project proponent must have right-of-way permits to build roads to the drill site – among the myriad of other permits required beyond obtaining an initial lease. Nowhere is this more of an obstruction than in Wyoming where the federal government owns 48% of the surface estate creating a “checkerboard” pattern that ultimately entangles private property, federal property, and state property access.

The federal government also controls about 68% of Wyoming’s mineral rights. In other words, between the surface estate and the mineral rights, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the United States Forest Service owns a disproportionate percentage of Wyoming’s natural resources and is able to thwart our economic development and expansion by simply throwing up a roadblock to virtually every project proposed.

Without a streamlined, understandable, and predictable process, and when faced with an administration that is pursuing an agenda of energy poverty over energy independence, Wyoming and this country will continue to suffer the consequences of these failed policies.

This administration has from day one sought to reorganize our national and foreign policy around the concept of relying upon tyrants, despots, and dictators to set domestic energy policy.  This administration has placed what amounts to an embargo on domestic energy production, while ensuring that our enemies are the only ones allowed to produce the energy that we need to power our economy.  To say that this approach is wrongheaded is an understatement, being downright dangerous to the security of the United States of America. 

I believe in American ingenuity.  I believe in using our resources to make our lives better.  I believe in a vision of prosperity - and so do my fellow Republicans in Congress.  We have drafted and passed H.R. 1, the Lowering Energy Costs Act. This legislation will end the Biden war on energy by streamlining leasing and permitting, incentivizing domestic mineral production, ending the de facto moratorium on coal, and modernizing federal regulations. Included in this monumental piece of legislation is the Combating Obstruction Against Leasing (COAL) Act which I submitted in response to the very issues outlined above, and which is designed to force the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to act on the many outstanding coal permits and leases. Now it is time for the Senate to listen to the people and join us in supporting American energy independence.