The White House remained silent this week when asked about the increasing crude oil production levels in the United States, even as President Biden continues to push an aggressive green energy agenda.
Field production of crude oil reached 13.3 million barrels per day in late December, the highest level on record, according to the latest data released by the Energy Information Administration. However, the The White House did not respond to several Fox News Digital investigations and discusses the numbers in light of its climate agenda.
“From day one, my administration has taken unprecedented climate action. We are working with everyone from mayors and county officials to entrepreneurs and academics, business leaders, labor leaders, tribal leaders,” Biden remarked in a speech on climate change in November. “We operate in every region of America: cities, suburbs, small towns, rural communities and tribal nations.”
“We’re just getting started – and we’re just getting started. And we really are. We’re just getting started,” he added. “All told, my Investing in America agenda and these bold climate laws are the most ambitious in American history.”
President Biden pictured next to an oil drilling platform in a photo illustration. His administration has attempted to restrict oil and gas drilling on federal lands. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Before December, the previous oil production of 13.1 million barrels per day was set in March 2020 during the Trump administration and shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic forced drilling to decrease significantly. The Trump administration has pushed various policies aimed at encouraging fossil fuel development.
However, shortly after taking office, Biden immediately took steps to curb oil and gas production on federal lands, issuing a moratorium on any new fossil fuel leasing, a measure he promised as part of his climate-focused campaign agenda. But in June 2021, after the administration was sued by a group of state attorneys general, a federal court struck down the moratorium. It was permanently canceled in August 2022.
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Following the court rulings, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that her agency would once again conduct fossil fuel leasing. The DOI then amended the federal oil and gas leasing program in April 2022 and ultimately held the administration’s first onshore lease sales months later. The agency was then sued by environmental groups for having organized the sales in a business still ongoing.
But the administration has continued a scaled-back oil and gas leasing program despite a legal requirement to conduct quarterly lease sales. DOI was sued by energy industry groups led by the Western Energy Alliance and the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, although sales occurred in 2022, they have not regularly conducted sales in accordance with the Mineral Lease Act.
The Interior Department’s five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program calls for only three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico through 2029, representing the smallest number of sales ever included in such a plan, which the agency is responsible for publishing periodically. (Gary Tramontina/Corbis via Getty Images)
In addition, the administration finalized the most restrictive offshore oil drilling plan in US history last month. Under the latest five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program, the federal government will conduct only three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico through 2029, marking a dramatic shift from plans finalized under Democratic and Republican administrations.
Biden also signed legislation providing billions of dollars for green energy development and released various goals to replace fossil fuels with alternatives across all sectors, as part of his efforts to combat global warming.
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“President Biden is working overtime to accelerate the shift to clean energy,” Josh Axelrod, a senior advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s nature agenda, told Fox News Digital. “His administration has sparked a manufacturing renaissance in the nation’s heartland, focused on clean energy. It is creating jobs, making the country more energy secure, and strengthening the nation’s supply chain for the building blocks of a modern economy.”
“Big oil, for their part, is playing a game in their favor to cash in on short-term profits by tying us all to the fuels of the past,” he continued. “This business model needs to change. This administration’s focus on clean energy policy can bend the curve in the right direction. There’s obviously a lot of work to do to make that happen.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks during an event celebrating the designation of the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, April 14, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, file)
He added that the The United Nations recently agreed gradually reduce fossil fuel production in coming decades, but noted that the United States, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and the other 16 major energy-producing countries plan to extract twice as much oil, gas and coal by 2030 “as a climate-safe country”. the world can tolerate. »
Axelrod urged big oil companies to recognize that “the sun is setting on fossil fuels and find their place in a clean energy, fossil-free future.”
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“Oil drilling is one of the reasons we’re losing two football fields of wildland every minute,” Lisa Frank, executive director of Environment America’s legislative office in Washington, told Fox News Digital. “Vast swaths of the United States, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Grand Canyon, are too special to drill or mine.”
“Environment America applauds President Biden’s actions to protect these unique places for wildlife and for generations to come,” Frank said. “At the same time, we continue to drill for more oil on American lands and in our oceans. When we drill, we spill, so the sooner we can transition to clean, renewable energy, the better.”
