The US government, under pressure to lower gas prices, announced on Friday that it would resume the sale of leases for oil and gas drilling on US federal land while imposing new conditions, including the first increase in royalties in more than 100 years.
Shortly after coming to office in January last year, US President Joe Biden, who has made fighting climate change one of his priorities during his campaign, proclaimed a moratorium on grants for new drilling leases on government-owned land and waters, pending a review.
The US Department of the Interior said in a statement that starting next week, it would auction 173 parcels totaling 58,275 hectares in nine states after making several changes.
Photo: AFP
That area is 80 percent less than had been under consideration.
The Biden administration said it would also increase the royalties companies pay on hydrocarbons they extracted, from 12.5 percent — the rate that had been in place for at least a century — to 18.75 percent of profits.
Companies interested in drilling would also have to meet new requirements, such as consultation with Native American tribes and compliance with “best available science” for the analysis of greenhouse gas emissions.
“For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations,” said US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the country’s first ever Native American Cabinet minister.
The move comes as the US president faces record inflation, especially in gas prices, which is eroding his ratings.
He has in the past few weeks been taking initiatives aimed at lowering the price of crude oil, including at the end of last month ordering the release of oil from the country’s strategic reserve.
However, the resumption of concessions for oil and gas exploitation on federal land is unlikely to have immediate effects, as the process can take several years.
The moratorium declared by Biden had already been put on hold by a judge in June last year on the basis that the administration needed to obtain congressional approval for such a move.
A few weeks later, the government launched an auction of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico, which were canceled by the US Department of Justice in January.
The interior department last year also approved thousands of oil and gas permits on federal land.
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