Biden’s first onshore oil and gas lease sales clash with administration’s climate goals
Without public input, the fossil fuel industry can call the shots on nearly 250 million acres of public land.
Mason Cummings, The Wilderness Society
Biden admin announces intention to resume onshore lease sales
Washington, DC (April 15, 2022) – Today, the Biden administration announced the intention to move ahead with onshore oil and gas lease sales that take important steps to protect cultural resources and wildlife habitat and address known deficiencies in the program itself.
These lease sales come at the same time the international science community has released yet another report outlining the urgency of action to address climate change, a goal that the administration has responded to with ambitious climate commitments including reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
In response, The Wilderness Society President Jamie Williams said:
“We appreciate the steps by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management to scale back these sales to address public concerns about conflicts with cultural resources and wildlife habitat and address decades-old deficiencies with the leasing program, and climate science demands we do much more.
“The latest report from the IPCC concluded that globally we must drastically reduce emissions immediately, or risk surpassing 3 degrees Celsius of warming — double the 1.5 degree threshold for permanent climate catastrophe. New leasing locks us into decades of more climate pollution.
“It’s time for this administration to put forward a plan for public lands that makes them part of a solution to the climate crisis rather than a contributor to the problem.”
CONTACT:
Kerry Leslie, Senior Communications Manager, 415-398-1484, kerry_leslie@tws.org
