FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2021
DENVER—As President Biden begins a trip through Western states to talk about climate change and infrastructure, the Center for Western Priorities is urging him to take swift action to change course on public lands and make them part of the climate solution, rather than exacerbating the climate crisis.
In Monday’s Denver Post, Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala points out that the Biden administration is preparing to auction off drilling rights to more than 700,000 acres of public land in Colorado and Wyoming, and 80,000,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico.
The law gives Interior Secretary Deb Haaland broad discretion to determine which lands (if any) are available for oil and gas leasing, and does not require the administration to hold lease sales of this magnitude.
Rokala also encourages President Biden to release a report that the Interior Department prepared with recommendations for how to fix the century-old system that governs oil and gas leasing on public lands. Secretary Haaland told reporters that the report would be released in early summer, but as Rokala points out:
“…summer has come and gone. Hundreds of Americans have died in heat waves and climate-fueled disasters from California to New York. And President Biden has yet to release the road map that would ensure future oil and gas leasing reflects the costs that our children and grandchildren will have to pay.”
The op-ed concludes with a look ahead to next month’s climate conference in Glasgow, where President Biden will tell world leaders to cut carbon emissions. Just a few weeks later, he will give oil and gas companies the opportunity to extract another billion barrels of oil.
Rokala calls out that cognitive dissonance, saying that “when the president encourages Congress and the world to act, he has an obligation to lead by example.”