The Department of the Interior announced Friday that it will resume planning for the issuance of leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
The move comes two days after a federal appeals court decision temporarily allowing the agency to use the Biden administration‘s increased social cost of carbon, or SCC, in its decision-making process for leasing.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DELAYS OIL AND GAS LEASING PROGRAM AFTER COURT RULING
“With this ruling, the Department continues its planning for responsible oil and gas development on America’s public lands and waters,” Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in a statement, per Bloomberg. “Calculating the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions provides important information that has been part of the foundation of the work the Interior Department has undertaken over the past year.”
The department did not specify when it would begin issuing new leases and permits. Prior to the February court ruling blocking the administration from using the increased SCC figure, the department’s Bureau of Land Management had been preparing for lease sales in several states, according to Reuters.
When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he signed an executive order increasing the SCC from $7 to $51 per ton of emissions. The SCC is intended to quantify the economic damage from carbon dioxide emissions.
Last month, however, Judge James Cain Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana sided with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by 10 Republican-led states and determined that the Biden administration lacked the authority to increase the climate metric. In response, the Biden administration announced that its oil and gas leasing program would suffer from delays as it raced to appeal the decision.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Biden administration could temporarily resume using the increased SCC while it weighs the case. This led to Friday’s announcement from the Interior Department that it will resume issuing new leases and permits for drilling on public land.
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The agency also announced plans to continue reforming “the significant shortcomings” in its oil and gas programs.
“Specifically, the Department is committed to ensuring its programs account for climate impacts, provide a fair return to taxpayers, discourage speculation, hold operators responsible for remediation, and more fully include communities, Tribal, state and local governments in decision-making,” the agency said, according to Bloomberg.
