Biden Administration Should Look at the Downstream Job Impacts of a Federal Leasing Ban

April 5, 2021

The Albuquerque Journal reports:

President Joe Biden has made battling climate change not just a top priority, but possibly the No. 1 national security issue today, with climate concerns now woven into virtually every government policy and program. That includes a new proposal last week to spend at least $2 trillion on a massive initiative to modernize the nation’s infrastructure. Clean energy development and carbon reduction is central to the proposal, backed by a new Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard to accelerate the country’s transition to a low- or no-carbon economy.

Biden has made it clear he will continue to push for a broad range of policies to address climate change, having already enacted a new national standard and several executive orders overregulating the industry. The current debate over oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters is just the start of the Biden administration’s war on the oil and gas industry.

Unfortunately, this is negatively affecting energy-rich communities across the U.S. who depend on the industry for their local funding, workforce, and revenue. Interior is conducting a comprehensive review of the processes pertaining to the future management of federal lands and waters as Biden’s indefinite “pause” on leasing continues.

Interior held a first-ever national forum on March 25^th to hear from stakeholders within the industry and opponents like environmentalists’ groups to kick off their months-long review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.

North America’s Building Trade Unions President Sean McGarvey said during the Interior forum, “We must ask if an outright ban on federal leases is the best first step without addressing the downstream job impacts. The last bastions of middle-class employment are in gas and oil, petrochemicals, and power generation.”

Biden’s continued false promises of green energy jobs to replace good-paying energy jobs lost do not include the message that these workers will take a 75 percent cut in pay as we previously discussed. Not to mention the billions in revenue and salaries the oil and gas industry supports that would be lost.

The Biden administration continues to throw obstacles at the already struggling oil and gas industry and offering no relief or feasible alternative for these communities and workers.