​During a Senate hearing this week officials from the Biden Administration extolled the conservation benefits from the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). However, they failed to acknowledge the program is funded almost entirely by revenues generated from oil and natural gas production on public lands. If they did, they’d risk running afoul of Interior Sec. Deb Haaland, who’s keeping the financial benefits of federal oil and natural gas leasing on the down low while working to eliminate the program.
​
​Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Shannon Estenoz, the assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, celebrated the achievements possible under GAOA. She said the law combines “an historic financial commitment to conservation and recreation.” Speaking specifically about national parks funding, she called GAOA’s new Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) “a game changing investment program that is helping us to make meaningful progress on protecting high-priority assets”

Earlier this week, Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma testified at a joint virtual forum hosted by the Congressional Western Caucus and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Republican members. Lawmakers held the event on the anniversary of Pres. Biden’s first year in the White House to explore how his policies have contributed to increased energy prices.
 
The discussion focused on the consequences of the Biden Ban on federal leasing, the overreaching threats from the Build Back Better Act, and overregulation from the Department of the Interior and other agencies that will further dampen American production. Participants also explored how to reverse the administration’s policies, the climate benefits of producing oil and natural gas in the United States, and Interior slow walking the permitting process. 

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle held that Chesapeake Energy was wrongly denied intervention in litigation challenging numerous Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and natural gas lease sales in the District Court of Idaho. Environmental groups have repeatedly challenged sales conducted since 2015, primarily in five lawsuits in the district courts of Idaho, Montana, and Washington, DC. The latest ruling represents a backfire in the plaintiffs’ plans to choose those jurisdictions and sidestep Wyoming, Colorado or Utah (the states where the vast majority of the leases were issued) as they forum shopped for activist judges who would put a finger on the scale and rule in their favor.

Congressional budget reconciliation documents released by the House Natural Resources Committee reveal lawmakers plan to direct $200 million to a park in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco congressional district. The special project is among many that would be funded by increased revenues and fees targeting oil and natural produced on public lands.
 
According to a confidential document obtained by E&E News and legislative language released Monday listing the priorities of Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the Presidio Trust is slated to receive $200 million as part of the $3.5 trillion budget package. Each committee in Congress is given jurisdiction over a specific dollar amount within the ongoing reconciliation process. The documents show how the Natural Resources Committee plans to spend its $25.6 - $31 billion allocation

In a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on July 27th, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland faced basic questions on when the Department of the Interior (DOI) will:
 

• Comply with an order from a Louisiana federal judge who ordered a halt to President Biden’s ban on new oil and natural gas lease sales, and
• Release a report on how DOI will conduct a comprehensive review of the entire federal oil and natural gas program, as ordered six months prior by the president.

 
The secretary’s responses were not as forthcoming nor as informative as lawmakers would have liked. The exchange between Sec. Haaland and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) is illustrative of the confusion.