”The latest move by the president once again gives our future away to radical political demands,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Kent Lassman. He was one of multiple climate experts who slammed the Biden administration’s ban on oil drilling across thousands of New Mexico acres.
As Fox News reported on Sept. 18, “According to the Department of the Interior (DOI), the proposal would ban new mining claims and oil and gas development across more than 4,200 acres in Sandoval County, New Mexico, located north of Albuquerque. If finalized and implemented, the action would remain in place for up to 50 years.” Former Trump EPA Transition Team Member Steve Milloy noted that this move is particularly ironic as Biden tried to claim he has lowered gas prices.
The Biden administration (along with the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management [BLM]) claims that it is protecting Native American lands, but what it’s not acknowledging is that local tribes are divided on the issue. Reuters reported in May, “The Navajo Nation has withdrawn support for a Biden administration plan to stop new oil and gas drilling near a sacred site in New Mexico, saying its members could lose potential income tied to those resources. The move puts the tribe at odds with New Mexico’s Pueblo nations.” The Biden administration is apparently depriving Native American Indians of income with their ban.
Lassman highlighted the falsity of the Biden administration’s claims of the ban being a benefit. “Resources, including minerals, will come out of the ground to improve the lives of people everywhere. We can do that in America, responsibly, with sensible law-bound safeguards or we can rely on child slave labor from abroad,” he insisted. “The latest move by the president once again gives our future away to radical political demands instead of doing the hard work of sensible energy policy.”
Milloy particularly emphasized the hypocrisy of the move. “Biden has repeatedly said th[at] he’s doing ‘everything he can’ to lower gas prices,” he noted. “From Day 1 of his term, though, he’s been doing everything he can to make gas prices higher in order to scare drivers away from gas cars and into electric vehicles.”
The Biden administration has targeted gas cars under the guise of climate change policy. “Although we ironically have record oil and gas production, Biden’s anti-oil policies and actions have made the U.S. lose critical oil market dominance,” Milloy said. “The U.S. is no longer in control of the marginal price of oil as it was under President Trump. OPEC is now in charge, and that will threaten our economy and national security until a new administration makes it clear that U.S. policy will unleash the oil industry to crush the price of oil.” That’s a sobering prediction.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., director of the Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, defined the oil drilling ban as an America-Last policy. “President Biden is once again putting America, American workers, and America’s energy security last, and advancing the economic and geopolitical power of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “Almost every week, Biden withdraws a new large swath of land from oil and gas or critical mineral production, leaving the United States ever more dependent on foreign countries, primarily China, to power our homes and economy.” Communist China is increasing its coal production even as the U.S. sabotages its own reliable energy.
Daren Bakst, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment, called out both the Biden administration and the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management. “The BLM‘s proposed ban is yet another example of the Biden administration restricting access to important resources that could drive down energy prices and make it easier to build critical infrastructure.”
Bakst went on to explain the value of the land in question, “The 4,200 acres at issue are considered to have high potential for the extraction of sand and gravel, which is especially important for construction purposes, such as roads.” He added, “This sweeping action, which could last for up to 50 years, is short-sighted and could unnecessarily harm Americans today and well into the future.”
The Biden administration is certainly good at hurting Americans in pursuit of woke ideology.
