Biden Plans to Open More Public Land to Drilling

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would resume selling oil and gas drilling leases on public lands, but would also raise the federal royalties that companies must pay to drill, which would be the first increase in those fees in more than a century.

The Interior Department said in a statement that it would open up 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states to oil and gas leasing next week, the first new fossil fuel permits to be offered on public lands since President Biden took office.

President Biden is trying to show voters that he is working to increase the domestic oil supply as prices surge in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Biden made a campaign pledge to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

No more drilling on federal lands, period. In February 2020, Mr. Biden told voters in New Hampshire.

After taking office, Mr. Biden issued an executive order banning new oil and gas leasing on public lands while the Interior Department produced a report on the state of the federal oil and gas drilling programs.

The rents and royalty fees charged for drilling on land and offshore were recommended in a report issued in November. According to the report, the government lost up to $12.4 billion in revenue from drilling on federal lands because of royalty rates being frozen for a century.

In opening up the new public lands for oil and gas permitting, the Interior Department will raise the royalty rates that companies must pay to the federal government from 12.5 percent of their profits to 18.75 percent, an increase that could bring in billions of dollars of new revenue.

For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the needs of the oil and gas industry over the needs of the local community, the natural environment, and the needs of tribal nations.

The second step in the Biden administration's plan to open up public lands and waters for drilling is the new lease sales. The Interior Department offered up to 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling last year, the largest sale in a year. Republican attorneys general from 13 states were able to overturn a suspension of sales that Mr. Biden had tried to impose. Environmental activists criticized the administration for the lease sales, which they said backsliding on Mr. Biden's already-stalled climate change agenda.

The Center for Biological Diversity said that the Biden administration's claim that it must hold these lease sales is fiction.

As part of a recent series of steps, Mr. Biden has taken as he attempts to soothe voter anxiety over rising gasoline prices. He announced the largest-ever release of oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reached a deal to increase natural gas exports to Europe, and called on Congress to pass legislation requiring oil companies to drill on their leases.