Biden Interior Department Suspends Oil and Gas Leases In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Fossil fuels are dirty.

Polar bears are cute animals.

We will power the country with solar energy and windmills and everyone will drive electric vehicles and eat soylent and Brood X cicadas and live in harmony with Mother Earth. Such is the depth of these people.

Politico:

“The Biden administration is suspending all oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending a deeper look at the environmental impacts of drilling in the sensitive region, the Interior Department said Tuesday.

The suspension of the leases, which POLITICO first reported earlier in the day, follows President Joe Biden’s January 20 executive order that identified “alleged legal deficiencies” in the original leasing program and put in place a temporary moratorium on any oil- and gas-related activities in the refuge. The executive order also left open the possibility that the department would undertake a new environmental review to address potential legal flaws in the program. …”

Axios:

“The Interior Department suspended nearly a dozen oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday, the agency announced.

Why it matters: The move, which will require a new environmental analysis, will undo former President Trump’s most significant environmental actions in his final days in office.

Worth noting: The new analysis could be time consuming and its results may spark a court battle. …”

Washington Post:

“The Interior Department will suspend several oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Tuesday, according to three individuals briefed on the decision, overturning one of Donald Trump’s most significant environmental acts during his last days in office.

The move, which could spark a major legal battle, aims to unwind nearly a dozen leases in the heart of a pristine expanse in Alaska that Republicans and Democrats have fought over for four decades. The Trump administration auctioned off the right to drill in the refuge’s coastal plain — home to hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl as well as the Southern Beaufort Sea’s remaining polar bears —just two weeks before President Biden was inaugurated. …

But Tuesday’s move signaled that the new administration was willing to take aggressive action in an area that has been a rallying cry for environmentalist for decades. …”

New York Times:

“WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday said it would suspend oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued in the waning days of the Trump presidency.

The decision could ultimately end any plans to drill in one of the largest tracts of untouched wilderness in the United States, delicate tundra in Alaska that is home to migrating waterfowl, caribou and polar bears. Democrats and Republicans have fought over whether to allow oil and gas drilling there for more than four decades, and issuing the leases was a signature achievement of the Trump White House. …”

After the Obama years and the Peak Oil scare, the decline in gas prices was one of the unheralded accomplishments of the Trump years. It was one of the things which I was surprised that Trump didn’t talk more about and which was one of my concerns with Joe Biden.

There has definitely been a change on this front. Along with the explosion in violent crime and the collapse of the border and the concept of systematic racism, we have progressive activists to thank for it.

The Randolph Leader:

“Gasoline prices in Alabama have risen 7.2 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $2.16/g, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 3,348 stations in Alabama. This compares with the national average that has increased 4.2 cents per gallon versus last week to $2.38/g, according to GasBuddy.

Average gasoline prices on Jan. 18 in Alabama have ranged widely over the last five years: $2.29/g in 2020, $1.93/g in 2019, $2.28/g in 2018, $2.13/g in 2017 and $1.65/g in 2016. …”

The average price of a gallon of gas around here is $2.89.

This is up around 63 cents since Joe Biden was sworn into office in January. This rounds out to an extra $6.30 for every 10 gallons of gas. The price of everything else has gone up too.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
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13 Comments

  1. Only big oil can afford these leases to fuck them. Securing the existence of small independent drillers is what is really important in my opinion.

  2. This will have a chilling effect on drillers.
    Who wants to put 10s of millions at risk, when some zogbot can halt your drilling and leave you hanging with expensive lease contracts?

  3. Apparently Hunter Wallace has never been around gas, it’s gross.

    Don’t give me that natural gas burns clean crap- it’s gas!

    HELLO?!?

    I am a centrists on green energy. I’m not nearly as bullish as the climate dooms dayers but they work decent in some situations.

    I never understood environmentalist hatred of natural gas.

    We could make all semi trucks run on natural gas years ago. It costs around 15+k to convert these semis to natural gas. That would eliminate a huge amount of carbon that would demand no changes to people’s lives and would be very cost effective.

  4. It’s only a gesture,The ZOG would never hobble it’s global supremacy by abandoning hydrocarbons.

    • Just an excuse to raise prices and taxes.

      Oh, lookie, the Germans are paying almost 7$/ gal, we can get the Americans to do the same.

  5. Biden is going to lift sanctions on Iran and that is going to be send oil prices much lower.

  6. Gasoline here is $2.80/Gallon, No. 2 diesel a little more. In California it’s above $4.00/Gallon everywhere and headed for +$5.00/Gallon very soon. Gasoline is going up everywhere in the country along with all other fuels and lubricants, the lifeblood of a modern economy.

    Since 1973 the public has been acutely sensitive to the price of gasoline and relentlessly punishes politicians for high prices whether they are responsible or not. That notorious scumbag Bill Clinton repeatedly tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to drive down fuel prices to prevent declines in his popularity. The village idiot of Texas, George Bush II was crushed by both his Iraq War and crude oil reaching about $145/Barrel in 2008.

    Higher fuel prices is also the single most inflationary thing in the economy, it impoverishes many people. Every time someone goes shopping not only are they buying gasoline to drive but they are buying diesel fuel also. Every gallon of milk, every pound of meat, all the produce and everything else is transported with diesel fuel including the railroads.

    Modern farming is also a big user of diesel fuel. All of these factors in the economy will quickly pass on higher prices to the consumer. Most of them, especially farmers and ranchers don’t have the slack to absorb increasing prices, they have to pass on increases or go out of business.

    Dementia Joe is unlikely aware of what is going on of course but the people running his misbegotten administration are acutely aware of everything. $3.00/Gallon and higher prices is the result of their deliberate policies; it’s a feature, not a bug. This will crush the Democrats in the next election cycle and beyond. It’s incredibly dumb for a politician to allow this to happen.

    • @12ax7

      Sure but let’s not pretend our corporations are nationalized.

      The high prices in California have waaaaaaaaaay more to do with the fact of local state taxes in gas and the states unwillingness to open another refinery.

      Ending drilling for Petro oil in Alaska is a *GOOD* thing.

      Drilling for oil destroys the land directly around it. Whether there’s oil production or refinery you’ll find increased cancer levels for all the humans and animals that live any where near it.

      Petro oil is globalized.

      Removing however many hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from the global market isn’t doing shit to the prices.

      Right now there’s *TOO MANY* countries pumping out oil. Every oil producing country is restricting how much oil they pump out to keep the global prices at their current level. This includes our allies in Arabia and our enemies like Russia.

      The world could be flooded with cheap Petro but than why would any country care to pump oil for $20 a barrel???

      Oil is too dirty of fuel (even putting aside carbon) for long term usage with a global population this size.

      The stopping of drilling of natural gas is actually a shame and will be a 21st/22nd century fuel.

      Petro oil is already dead. And every major oil company will tell you that. There’s not a single oil company making the argument that Petro oil will be relevant into the next century.

      The only people who make long term Petro oil predictions are right wing partisan hacks. Who are simply providing enough cover so that oil companies can cash in as much as they can before the party is over. Oil companies will pay think tanks and partisan operatives to make arguments they themselves will never make (or even a sanitized version of it) which is how you know it’s a work. Find me a single statement from any major oil company here or internationally where they’re making any commitments to oil long term?

      Dissident right wingers need to stop being the dirty laundry basket of contra opinions. We gain nothing from protecting power and lose creditability eating shit for corporate short term success.

      They simply want to cash in their chips before leaving the casino.

      Natural Gas, yes. Petro oil, no.

      *Petro will continue have industrial and military uses moving forward but it’s not going to be the main fuel source moving forward

  7. It increasingly feels like Biden will be one term and done if the GOP nominates someone decent. Or, do economics matter when seemingly your whole society is busy fighting “systemic racism” and blaming White people for every real and imagined problem looney tunes professors can conjure up?

    • Problem is America now has a majority of bad people who will probably keep these creeps in no matter how badly they screw up. Add to that all the foreigners who just don’t get the nuances of what is really going on? To them America is like watching a foreign movie without the subtitles on, it’s all flash, but they don’t get the plot. That’s how some muslim who would kill his own daughter for winking at a boy would go out and vote for democrats who believe in the 57 genders of anal sex. I am wondering how long it will take for the shrinking number of adults left to realize if we ever get power again we dare not risk losing it to these children through “an election.” Once America rids itself of this degenerate democracy phenomenon I expect the world to quickly follow and rid itself of this disease. A lot of competent minorities were hanging on quite successfully until the nefarious influence of American “popularity contest voting” undermined them. Democracy sucks, your civics class was a lie.

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