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IN CASE YOU WERE TOO BUSY ENJOYING THE FOURTH OF JULY… The Interior Department waited until close of business on Friday before the holiday weekend to drop its 500+-page proposed program for offshore oil and gas leasing, a classic news dump for a document that mostly delayed major decisions about the fate of drilling in federal waters and prolonged the dissatisfaction among many parties…
What’s in it: The proposed program contemplates between zero and a maximum of up to 11 lease sales in the Outer Continental Shelf between 2023 and 2028.
The schedule mirrors the 2017-2022 final program, which just expired on Thursday: 10 lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
The eastern Gulf is off limits as proposed, as are most waters offshore Alaska, and all OSC areas in the Atlantic and Pacific regions.
The yays and nays: The proposed program was met with intense backlash from green groups, who want to see an end to both the onshore and offshore leasing programs in order to abate climate change and brought up President Joe Biden’s campaign trail promise to restrict oil and gas leasing on federal lands.
“President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse,” said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter.
Several environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, had been urging the administration to issue a proposed program with no potential new lease sales.
Hallie Templeton, FOE’s legal director, accused the administration of cozying up to energy companies and said the proposed program exposed Biden as “as yet another leader who cares more about polluters than about a livable future for people and the planet.”
Oil and gas interests, and notably Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, welcomed the proposed program but reacted warily to Interior’s emphasis on the discretion it holds to ultimately hold fewer sales than the 11 contemplated — or none at all.
Erik Milito, who heads the National Ocean Industries Association, called on the administration to finalize and implement the program “as proposed, without reduced acreage.”
The agency delayed and delayed and then avoided committing itself: Interior used every bit of runway it gave itself, and then an extra day, to put out a proposed program it knew wouldn’t sit well with Biden’s environmental allies.
The department went lengths to communicate that its proposed program is not final and remains amenable, all the way up to the carrying out of no new lease sales, as green groups and some congressional Democrats requested.
“A Proposed Program is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
The department, in a brief filed last week as part of the oil industry’s appeal of D.C. District Judge Rudolph Contreras’s ruling that vacated last year’s lone offshore sale, emphasized that even the finalized program doesn’t necessarily hold it to carrying out included sales.
“During the course of every prior five-year program, Interior has used its discretion to hold fewer sales than contemplated by the applicable program,” it said.
The document itself noted that Interior prepared it in order to perform further analytical work on the net benefits of the potential lease sales and that the “inclusion of an area for analysis in this Proposed Program is not a final determination that the area will be included in the [proposed final program], or ultimately offered in a future lease sale.”
The timing: Republicans in Congress, and industry too, had lobbied the Biden administration to act more swiftly in putting together the proposed program, which is well behind schedule compared to the predecessor program finalized during the Obama administration.
The Obama Interior Department issued its proposed program well over a year before the expiration of the 2012-2017 five-year program.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Jeremy Beaman (@jeremywbeaman) and Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep). Email jbeaman@washingtonexaminer.com or bdeppisch@washingtonexaminer.com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
GEORGIA EXTENDS GAS TAX HOLIDAY THROUGH MID-AUGUST: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp extended his state’s gas tax holiday through mid-August, seeking to reduce pain for drivers.
The move comes with the national average gas price at $4.80 a gallon, down from a record $5.02 a gallon last month, according to AAA.
OIL DROPS BELOW $100 A BARREL AMID RECESSION FEARS: Oil prices tumbled below $100 a barrel on Tuesday for the first time since May, falling more than 8% amid ongoing supply concerns and growing fears of a global recession.
Futures for the U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate (WTI), fell Tuesday by 8%, or $8.67, trading at $99.76 per barrel for the first time since May 11.
Meanwhile, futures for international benchmark Brent crude fell by $7.7 to $104.76 per barrel.
Analysts at Citigroup cautioned that oil prices could fall to $65 per barrel by the end of this year—and fall to $45 by the end of 2023— if the global economy tumbles into a recession.
“In a recession scenario with rising unemployment, household and corporate bankruptcies, commodities would chase a falling cost curve as costs deflate and margins turn negative to drive supply curtailments,” Citi analysts said today in a note to clients.
“Currently, our US economists do not expect the US to dip into a recession, but are also skeptical about the Fed’s ability to engineer a modest slowdown, as the historical experience has been of hard rather than soft landings,” the group wrote. Read more from Breanne here.
NEW PROTEST TREND: GREEN ACTIVISTS GLUING THEMSELVES TO ART: A group of environmental activists with the group Just Stop Oil glued themselves to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting in London today, the latest in a string of disruptive protests from the group.
In a video shared on social media, five activists can be seen gluing themselves to the frame of the famous sixteenth-century painting at the the Royal Academy of Arts in London, after spray-painting the words “No New Oil” on the wall below.
Last week, Just Stop Oil protesters took aim at other historic works by JMW Turner, Vincent van Gogh, and Horatio McCulloch at museums in London, Glasgow, and Manchester.
Yesterday, two protesters affiliated with the group also glued themselves to the frame of The Hay Wain, a 200-year-old masterpiece by John Constable, at London’s National Gallery.
One protester said their group had chosen The Last Supper to highlight the global food crisis that has been exacerbated by climate change and extreme temperatures.
“Food production is down and crops are failing,” he said, according to The Independent. “Any more oil production or new oil infrastructure projects are going to tip us over the edge possibly to 2 degrees of warming.”
“The future of this planet is facing its last supper in many regards,” he added. Read more from Breanne here.
EU AND NAMIBIA IN TALKS FOR GREEN HYDROGEN DEAL: The EU is in talks with Namibia for a possible green hydrogen deal to be signed in November, Reuters reports, as it seeks alternatives to Russian energy imports.
Earlier this year, the EU set an energy strategy of importing roughly 10 tons of green hydrogen by 2030, with another 10 million tons to be produced at home.
Next steps: EU officials plan to sign a memo of understanding, or MoU, with Namibia on hydrogen and minerals at the U.N. climate change summit in Egypt this November.The news comes after EU officials signed an MoU with Israel and Egypt in June to boost liquified natural gas imports to Europe.
DRAGHI ISSUES CALL TO ACTION AFTER ALPINE DEATHS: Prime Minister Mario Draghi called for the Italian government to act to respond to climate change after a glacier in the Italian Alps collapsed over the weekend, killing at least seven people. Fourteen are still missing, Euractiv reported.
Temperatures in the area have been unseasonably warm and reached record levels.
“Certainly, there are some unforeseen aspects in this tragedy, but it most certainly depends on the deterioration of the environment and climate change,” Draghi said. The government must act to ensure that “what happened is unlikely to happen in the future or can even be avoided.”
The Rundown
Associated Press China sees record rains, heat as weather turns volatile
The Guardian Spain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years, research shows
Bloomberg Giant UK electric-car charging station also will supply the grid
Washington Post Hundreds rescued as Sydney suffers fourth flood in less than 18 months
Calendar
THURSDAY | JULY 7
10:30 a.m. Rystad Energy will host a “Rystad Talks Industry” event focused on the global solar energy supply chain and barriers to growth of the industry.
WEDNESDAY | JULY 13
2:30 p.m. 366 Dirksen The Senate Energy and Natural Resources’ Energy Subcommittee will hold a hearing on pathways to lower energy prices.
