U.S. oil and gas permitting has increased under Biden, data shows
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Republican politicians, conservative pundits and fossil fuel industry leaders have accused President Biden of weakening the U.S.’s economic power against Russia by reducing oil and gas production.
Last week, for example, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said, “Joe Biden has given up the best defense we had against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s evil vision for the world — energy independence.”
But a data dashboard unveiled Wednesday by the Center for Western Priorities shows that the opposite is true. The federal government has been issuing oil and gas drilling permits more willingly than it did during President Donald Trump’s first three years in office, and it could be issuing even more if the oil and gas industry weren’t leaving many current leases undeveloped.
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The United States achieved net energy independence in 2020, but that has not insulated the nation from the roiling of energy markets in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Europe has been a large consumer of Russian natural gas, and the effort to wean itself, with the help of the United States, has strained markets and endangered global efforts to address the climate crisis.
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Fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas, primarily — remain the dominant energy sources for much of the world, with their accompanying infrastructure of mines, drilling and production wells, pipelines and various forms of transportation. But they have become more problematic as governments struggle to address climate change and pivot to energy sources that do not result in carbon dioxide emissions.
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While electric-powered vehicles may be the ride of the future, oil remains at least for now the dominant fuel for transportation around the world. And after a period of time at the end of the 20th century when oil was subject to wide fluctuations in price, new supplies in North America as a result of non-conventional recovery techniques have helped stabilize prices.