​DENVER -- Today, Western Energy Alliance urged Congress to reach an agreement on federal spending for Fiscal Year 2024 to avoid a government shutdown. The disruptions from a shutdown, however long, will have negative impacts on American energy production in the short-term while adding to the long-term uncertainty inherent in development on federal lands.
 
“The Biden Administration is already hostile to American oil and natural gas production; it doesn’t need another excuse to further block development on federal lands and waters. The handful of Republicans in Congress standing in the way of a deal basically want to stand with President Biden in owning some of the energy inflation caused by his administration’s efforts to slow walk oil and natural gas,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance. “The bureaucracy at the Interior Department already uses the least excuse for delaying and preventing approvals on federal lands and waters. A government shutdown is another excuse for bureaucrats not to do their jobs, but it also hands the political leadership a get-out-of-jail-free card. They will use the shutdown, however long, as a reason to further delay projects and leasing.

• The Alliance submitted comments on a rule that will increase energy inflation by $1.8 billion
• BLM proposals go beyond the Inflation Reduction Act and other statutory authorities
• Plans to address orphan wells on public lands are capricious given historically low numbers

 
DENVER – Western Energy Alliance submitted comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) responding to the proposed Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process rule, which would increase costs on American energy development and production and further exacerbate energy inflation. The trade association’s public comment letter addresses economic harms that would be created by BLM going beyond what Congress passed last year in the Inflation Reduction Act (BLM), such as increasing bonding rates twenty-fold and further discouraging American oil and natural gas production.

DENVER – Western Energy Alliance’s president, Kathleen Sgamma, will testify at a hearing entitled­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ “Examining the Biden Administration’s Mismanagement of the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Program” before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. Sgamma’s testimony will focus on how the Biden Administration’s “whole-of-government approach” is creating overregulation that drives down interest on federal oil and natural gas leasing, particularly with the Bureau of Land Management’s leasing rule. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, September 19th, at 10:30 a.m. ET, and will be available on the committee’s website.
 
“The Administration is moving forward with a whole-of-government approach to stopping American oil and natural gas. The level of regulation coming at my industry is astounding, with practically every single agency, not just oil and natural gas regulators, getting into the action in the name of climate change,” said Sgamma. “Financial regulators, transportation, labor, every agency is attempting to prevent American production of the oil, natural gas, and coal that provides 80% of the energy to power our economy and enable the healthy, safe, and environmentally protective modern lifestyle that Americans enjoy. Government policies, as Europe is discovering, don’t make real energy appear, no matter how many billions of dollars are thrown at it. We’re all in this together, and I urge the administration to work with us, not regulate us out of existence.”