This week Interior Secretary Dave Bernhardt, on a trip to New Mexico, said his Department will not further delay a district BLM land use plan that includes, among many other things, a decision on the scope of oil and gas development. Participants in the very public processes for updating these plans know how arduous and time-consuming they are. This one, the “Mancos-Gallup Resource Management Plan Amendment,” has been in the works for six years. Nevertheless, activists whose not-so-hidden agenda is to stop all energy production are demanding further delay. This time, they say the pandemic requires delaying such decisions.
Numerous environmental industry groups, the Navajo Nation, and the State’s Democratic Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, oppose any BLM energy leasing in northwest New Mexico. Some say the area is too close to the Chaco Culture National Historic Site, which is protected from such development by law, and by Secretary Bernhardt’s commitment not to issue permits within ten miles of the park, while Congress wrestles with a decision on a permanent buffer zone. Others demand that an “ethnographic study,” for which Congress authorized $1 million, be completed first.
Numerous issues have been raised in an effort to delay the plan, which perfectly serves opponents’ purposes. Delay means no energy development. Even so, the clock eventually runs out on issues like these, because the conclusion of such studies is already clear, at least to westerners. Namely, the area is beautiful, unique, geologically fascinating, home to a diversity of plant and wildlife species, and was occupied by native tribes for centuries, who left behind many traces of their culture.
Trouble is, that describes virtually the entire western United States, including land where much of the nation’s energy is already produced. Can we get energy instead from ugly places nobody cares about? Are there any such places?
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that many activists do not care about energy independence. That is a perfectly legitimate topic for debate, one on which reasonable people may disagree. But it should be understood that such a view contradicts 50 years of official government policy, under both political parties. Last week I mentioned specific goals, forcefully articulated by Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump – all clearly stating the high priority of ending America’s dependence on foreign energy supplies.
Some now argue that the goal should not be “energy independence” but rather “carbon-free” energy, another perfectly legitimate topic for debate, about which reasonable people can differ. But despite such rhetoric, energy independence remains official policy because the public overwhelmingly embraces that goal.
Despite decades of regulations hindering domestic production, the U.S. has made tremendous progress toward that goal. By early 2018, U.S. energy consumption was about 8.0 quadrillion BTUs, and domestic production was around 7.9 quadrillion BTUs. Those numbers seesaw back and forth, but in several months since then, domestic production has actually exceeded consumption. On average, America is now producing at least 94 percent of the energy it consumes.
That is a result of relaxing government’s regulatory stranglehold, and significant technological advances. Companies can now locate and produce resources previously unknown, hard to reach, or too small to be profitable, thanks especially to technologies like hydraulic fracturing.
Though we have been told for many years that the U.S. will run out of oil and gas, these developments make that extremely unlikely. The Marcellus shales in the northern Appalachians, for example, have over 250 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, enough to supply the entire nation for more than a decade. And the Bakken fields of North Dakota contain at least 20 billion barrels of recoverable oil, roughly the same amount the U.S. Department of Energy thought were the total U.S. reserves just 20 years ago. America has plenty of energy available, but much of it is on public land – because the public owns most of the West.
New Mexico opponents now claim Interior should extend the public comment period on the BLM plan because of COVID-19, though Bernhardt already did that once. They want to wait until in-person meetings can be held again, as if unaware of the years of public meetings already held. Delay is part of the process, but it cannot substitute for policy. Delay is not a decision, so eventually someone has to make a decision. At the moment Secretary Bernhardt is that decision-maker, serving at the pleasure of a president who was elected, at least in part, because of this very issue.
Comments on this entry are closed.