US warns of “false urgency” for oil and gas development

Fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas will still be integral for the US economy, though there’s a “false urgency” to move forward on exploitation without considering the environmental impact, the US interior secretary said March 25.

Interior secretary Deb Haaland said during a virtual public forum on the federal oil and gas agenda that her office was working to address policies from the previous administration that prioritised fossil fuel development on public lands above all else.

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“Fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in America for years to come, but too often, the extraction of resources has been rushed to meet the false urgency of political timetables, rather than with careful consideration of the impacts to the environment and future generations of Americans,” she said.

Former president Donald Trump made energy dominance a priority of his administration, opening up huge swathes of public land for fossil fuel exploration and advancing a permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

President Joe Biden has reversed many of those moves, revoking the Keystone XL permit and pausing oil and gas leases on federal lands while the administration considers its climate policies.

“The pause in new oil and gas lease sales gives us space to look at the federal fossil fuel programs that haven’t been meaningfully examined or modernised in decades,” Haaland said.

The American Petroleum Institute, which has outlined its own priorities for clean energy, said the industry supports the need to address climate change, but a ban was short-sighted policy. By its estimate, a long-term ban on federal leasing could lead to a 15% increase in coal use by the power sector by 2030.

Coal usage was down about 28% from 2019 levels, despite the Trump administration’s emphasis on fossil fuels.

Among fossil fuels, natural gas was the primary US energy source last year, the Department of Energy has said. Among renewables, the distinction went to biofuels.