U.S. President Joe Biden vowed during his 2020 election campaign to end federal oil and gas drilling as a major step in his strategy to fight climate change.
The U.S. Senate Democrats' $430 billion spending bill agreed this week could kill that pledge. If it passes, it would effectively guarantee continued drilling rights auctions on federal lands and waters for at least another decade.
For instance, it makes permitting of solar and wind facilities on federal land contingent on the Interior Department offering at least 2 million acres of land for lease to drillers within the previous year, a provision that would last a decade. Green groups, while broadly supportive of the bill's billions of dollars of incentives for clean energy, criticized its protection of federal oil and gas leasing.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Biden this week called the spending deal a compromise that does not deliver his full agenda but will ease inflation pressures. While the bill protects the federal drilling program, it also includes reforms that would make development more expensive. It raises royalty rates for onshore drilling to 16.66% from 12.5% and increases minimum bids, rental rates and bonding requirements meant to protect taxpayers from paying the cost of well cleanup if companies go bankrupt.
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