Joe Biden’s pledge to block oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters would likely not be effective in reducing emissions over the long term, considering that most of the shale boom has occurred on private land.
Targeting fossil fuel production on public land would not significantly decrease emissions over time because if demand for oil and gas rebounds after the coronavirus pandemic, production could move to other areas of the United States or to countries with less cumbersome regulations.
In addition, supply-side restrictions are less predictable than those targeting reductions in fossil fuel demand, such as a carbon tax or a zero-carbon electricity mandate.
“Emissions may reduce a little bit, but it’s a global oil market. If demand is still there, somebody is going to drill it somewhere else,” said Arvind Ravikumar, an assistant professor of energy engineering at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. “Unless you reduce demand and provide non-fossil fuel options, a ban on drilling is a temporary fix.”
Supporters of the policy say it would be symbolically important and would pack a decent punch.
“It’s such an obvious first step to a clean energy economy,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and a member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. “You just can’t keep digging the hole deeper.”
The oil and gas industry is taking the threat seriously, arguing that blocking federal drilling would effectively prevent much of the West Coast, where public land is concentrated, from earning royalty payments distributed to state governments.
“You can’t develop in the West without hitting federal minerals,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a group of oil and gas companies that are active on federal lands. “You can’t resign an entire region of the country to lose an important economic resource.”
For example, while most of the Permian Basin, the world’s biggest oil field, exists on private land in West Texas, some of it spills over to public land in New Mexico. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has said she wants New Mexico, the top recipient of energy revenues from federal lands, exempted from any drilling ban.
About 8% of U.S. oil and 9% of natural gas were produced on federal land as of fiscal year 2018, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Biden also wants to expand his drilling ban to offshore federal waters, which had experienced record oil production before the coronavirus halted demand.
Oil production in the western and central portions of the Gulf of Mexico, where nearly all U.S. offshore drilling occurs, accounted for about 15% of the nation’s oil production, nearly 2 million barrels a day, in January. A much lesser amount of natural gas is produced offshore, less than 5%.
Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, a lobbying group for offshore drillers, said restricting production would raise energy prices.
“When you consider the underinvestment we will see in the near and long term from COVID-19 and combine that with a policy like this, consumers will face a terrible situation from a pricing standpoint,” Milito said.
Democrats and environmentalists say that addressing greenhouse gas emissions on public lands represents a significant piece of the puzzle to combating climate change and is worth pursuing.
Nearly one-quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from energy production on public lands and waters, the U.S. Geological Survey found in 2018.
“At a time when we realize it’s important to scale back our greenhouse gas emissions, leadership by the federal government to begin to be judicious about oil and gas drilling makes perfect sense,” said David Hayes, a deputy Interior Department secretary in the Obama administration.
Blocking public oil and gas drilling also creates legal questions and has practical limitations.
Biden’s ban would not affect existing oil and gas leases, which can last for up to 10 years.
“If you believe 2030 is a critical interim goal to make a big dent in emissions, you have to do something on the supply side,” said Brett Hartl, chief political strategist at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund. “The problem is there is so much existing production under contract, especially after four years of Trump, that the math doesn’t work for 2030.”
Nonetheless, Sgamma promised a legal challenge from day one, arguing that federal laws mandate that the government offer federal land for oil and gas leasing if companies are interested.
Former President Barack Obama, she noted, stopped short of stopping new oil and gas drilling, even as he imposed regulations on fracking and methane leakage on public lands. One year before leaving office, Obama did declare a moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, which Trump overturned, leading to an ongoing legal battle.
“The Obama administration engaged in death by a million cuts on federal lands, but it was all within their power,” Sgamma said. “We can handle overregulation. But just saying no more federal leasing is not in the power of the president, and we would go to court and win those lawsuits.”
Hayes counters that federal law gives broad discretion to the Interior secretary on how to manage public land, who can choose to emphasize conservation or renewable energy development instead of oil and gas leasing.
“I don’t know how anyone can argue that oil and gas or coal has an automatic right to have Uncle Sam sign a lease put in front of them by a private operator,” said Hayes, who is now executive director of the State Energy and Environment Impact Center, a coalition that assists state attorneys general contesting Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
Biden would have a more cut-and-dry legal case with restricting offshore oil and gas leasing.
The Interior secretary is required to submit a five-year offshore leasing plan to Congress and could decide not to offer any territory for drilling. The Trump administration attempted to use that authority to expand drilling into nearly all federal waters, including places that are currently off-limits, such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. It has delayed finalizing the plan after pushback from states that were concerned about oil spills and harming coastal tourism.
“For offshore, there does appear to be more flexibility to make determinations on leasing,” Milito said.
Kevin Book, the managing director of the nonpartisan consulting group ClearView Energy, said the efficacy and public support for a drilling ban on federal lands will be determined by energy prices at the time of enactment.
If oil and gas prices stay at historic lows due to the coronavirus pandemic, it becomes easier for Biden to argue that the federal government, states, and companies would not be missing out on much.
“The argument you are going to do it because of the climate issue is a lot harder at $100 per barrel than it is at $20 per barrel,” Book said. “Low hydrocarbon prices means there is less public penalty for this kind of intervention.”
