Joe Biden's oil leasing scam

Late in the afternoon of Good Friday, the Biden administration dumped some information intended to deceive the people. The Interior Department announced that "the Biden Administration plans to restart oil and gas leasing on federal lands this week." That's intended to make the administration look like they're doing something to lower gas prices without actually doing much to lower gas prices. Fortunately, this Wall Street Journal editorial highlights the Administration's deception.

According to the editorial, "During his first week in office, President Biden ordered the Interior Department to halt oil and gas lease sales on federal lands. Federal judge Terry Doughty last June ruled the ban violated the Mineral Leasing Act, which requires the government to hold quarterly lease sales “for each State where eligible lands are available.” The judge ordered Interior to resume leasing.

The editorial continued, saying "Interior appealed while dragging its feet. Finally in November it held an offshore sale in the Gulf of Mexico. But months later another judge vacated the leases, quibbling that Interior didn’t calculate the potential greenhouse-gas emissions from oil produced from the leases that is consumed abroad. Interior didn’t appeal that ruling."

Energy companies threatened to seek another judicial order to compel Interior to hold an onshore lease sale this spring. Interior’s Friday announcement is an attempt to head off that effort. It says it will hold a sale for 173 parcels on roughly 144,000 acres of land. This is doing the least possible to comply with Judge Doughty’s ruling last summer.

This is two-thirds less land than the average during the Trump Presidency. Interior says it is "prioritizing the American people’s broad interests in public lands," but the sale amounts to a mere 0.00589% of federal land. Americans have a significant interest in more domestic energy production. They don’t want to keep paying more than $4 a gallon for gasoline.

This is a PR stunt, albeit a stunt that's likely to fail. Why would investors invest in something knowing that the Biden administration is intent on killing that industry? The administration didn't say anything about approving pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Further, these are just leases. After exploration, investors would need permits to extract the oil or natural gas. Next, the Administration is raising the fees for these plots from 12.5% to 18.75%. Finally, the Biden Administration removed the plots most likely to hold the largest deposits. This is an important interview to view:

This is important, too:

The Administration took 182 days to issue a drilling permit last year compared with a few days for the state of Texas. Time carries a monetary value, and the leasing suspension has increased the cost of new investment. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Biden doesn’t want to increase U.S. oil and gas production. He wants to duck political responsibility for high energy prices.

A consistent theme of this administration is that they treat the American people like they're idiots. We've seen this game before. This administration takes a tiny bit of success, then touts it as an historic success that's never been accomplished before.