• Federal oil and natural gas leasing is mandated by IRA
• Interior Department must halt the ban and immediately schedule lease sales
• Methane fee will increase costs for consumers

 
DENVER -- Following President Biden signing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law today, Western Energy Alliance calls on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to immediately schedule quarterly oil and natural gas lease sales. IRA mandates that Interior hold regular, substantial oil and natural gas lease sales prior to approving rights of way for federal wind or solar energy development.
 
“Congress has once again sent a resounding message to Interior about the importance of federal oil and natural gas. By supporting IRA, every Democrat in Congress and the president of the United States agreed that oil and natural gas is critical to our economic and national security. By connecting federal leasing directly to renewable energy permitting, lawmakers recognize the value of increasing American production to bring down energy inflation and enhance national security,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance. “Leasing federal lands for development is the law under IRA, the Mineral Leasing Act, and other laws. It’s now time for the Interior Department to move forward swiftly with oil and natural gas leasing.” 

• Interior Department has created a conservation double whammy for parks
• $2.8 billion in annual Great American Outdoors Act funds are being mismanaged
• Misguided ESG and climate change presidential orders contribute to added red tape and costs
• Biden’s limits on federal leasing threaten future conservation funding

 
DENVER – Western Energy Alliance today calls on the U.S. Department of the Interior to address growing mismanagement of national park funding and reverse policies threatening future conservation projects. Ongoing fires at Yosemite National Park and recent flooding at Yellowstone National Park underscore the growing threats to national parks from the Biden Administration’s poor oversight of conservation funding from the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA).

​DENVER -- Today, Western Energy Alliance and the U.S. Oil and Gas Association (USOGA) call on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to rescind its proposed climate change disclosure rule in light of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed rule runs afoul of the major questions doctrine by assuming climate change regulatory and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting authority for SEC. If even EPA doesn’t have such authority in the absence of a congressional mandate, then certainly a financial regulator cannot act like an environmental regulatory agency by requiring GHG emissions reporting and reductions. 

​DENVER – Western Energy Alliance today responded to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) onshore oil and natural gas lease sale in Wyoming and legal maneuvers by Keep-It-in-the-Ground environmental groups led by WildEarth Guardians that want to stop all federal oil and natural gas leasing and development. The following statement is attributable to Alliance president Kathleen Sgamma.
 
“These groups are trying to conjure up a legal precedent to support their agenda of absolutely no oil and natural gas leasing and development anywhere. With obstructionist groups having challenged 3,500 recent drilling permits and 5,900 leases issued since 2015, there is a coordinated effort to drive an agenda through the courts of absolutely no federal production at all. Actual laws passed by Congress such as the Mineral Leasing Act, which requires regular lease sales, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which specifies that oil and natural gas is one of the primary uses of public lands, are the prevailing law of the land. It’s bad timing for them that we’re in a Supreme Court season right now in which the highest court is reining in judicial activism that conjured legal rights and policies out of thin air, not the constitution and actual laws.

​DENVER – Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma will testify at a hearing on inflation and high energy prices organized by Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ-05). The hearing will take place Tuesday, June 21st at 3:00 p.m. ET at the Heritage Foundation and is available online.
 
“Since day one, President Biden has pursued a climate change agenda meant to constrain American oil and natural gas production and consumption. Starting with the cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline followed a week later by the leasing ban, the president was intent on restricting American oil and natural gas. On federal lands and waters where the federal government has the most control, he has pledged eliminating it altogether,” said Sgamma. “The president could help ease inflation by backing off these policies and even encouraging American production. However, we have seen few meaningful signs, other than rhetorical, that a reversal is in the cards.