National Niche The Interior Department’s U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will offer 63 drilling parcels on nearly 44,000 acres (17,806 hectares) in six Western states beginning on November 28. The auctions will lead off with 35,000 acres (14,164 hectares) of land in Wyoming. With 37 parcels, the Wyoming sale is by far the largest. The remaining parcels, in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nevada, North Dakota and Utah, will be sold on November 30, December 5 and December 12. The online auction platform EnergyNet will hold all of the sales. The Biden administration has been blocked by the courts from stopping new leasing of federal lands and waters. The administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) included oil and gas auctions as a prerequisite for renewable energy development and requires higher royalty rates and minimum bids. A United Nations “Conference of the Parties” on climate, known as COP 28, begins November 30 in Dubai and will be taking place over the same period as the U.S. auctions. At the meeting, COP 28 nations plan to press for the world’s first deal to combat climate change by phasing out carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. ****************************************************** Sale of Gulf of Mexico Leases Ordered A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in November orders the US Interior Department to conduct the Gulf of Mexico drilling rights auction by December 20, 2023. This sale was mandated by last year’s climate law and is set to be the last of its kind until at least 2025. Originally, the Interior Department made plans to conduct the sale in September; however, removed 6 million acres from the auction block due to concerns the area overlapped with
potential habitat of the critically endangered Rice’s whale. At the same time, the agency imposed vessel traffic limitations in the area. Challenges to these moves were brought by the oil industry in federal court. The federal appeals court decision is considered a defeat for environmentalists who argued oil leasing and development in the region imperils a critically endangered whale. The court found environmental organizations didn’t have standing to appeal earlier rulings compelling the auction with the disputed acreage and without vessel traffic restrictions. The Biden administration did not challenge the lower court order that compelled the auction, only requesting more time to comply. The granted 37 days are designed to allow time for the publication of a new sale notice in the government’s Federal Register and to accept new sealed bids for Gulf leases. ****************************************************** Willow Development in Alaska to Proceed In November, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason cleared the way for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The federal court rejected a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic seeking to vacate the Bureau of Land Management record of decision and final supplemental environmental impact statement as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion, and upheld regulatory approval. ConocoPhillips will proceed to develop their plan using three pads and anticipates construction will begin in 2024.
******************************************************
G rowth T hrough E ducat i on - O c tober / N ov ember / D e c ember 2023 27
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting