In just days, Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States. Already, President-elect Biden has nominated a cabinet that reflects America’s diversity, including selecting Representative Debra Haaland to be the first Native American secretary of the Interior. His cabinet appears poised to take immediate and bold action to address climate change.
Key among climate change initiatives will be Biden’s campaign promise to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.” Pausing the processing and approval of any new, modified, or expanded coal, oil, and gas production on public lands and waters would represent important climate progress.
Fossil fuel development on America’s public lands and waters—covering more than 2 billion acres—is responsible for approximately 25 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. Continuing the leasing and approval process for fossil fuel development on our public lands and waters is fundamentally incompatible with the urgent action necessary to combat climate change at the scale and pace required by the crisis. We must phase out fossil fuels and invest in Black, Indigenous, brown, and working-class communities who have borne the brunt of fossil fuel pollution and climate disruption.
Similar pauses were put in place under both the Obama and Reagan administrations related to federal coal leasing, which allowed the relevant agencies the time necessary to evaluate impacts, consider alternatives, and implement necessary changes as to how we manage shared public lands.[1] Such a pause is necessary here to avoid locking in decades of new fossil fuel production at a critical juncture. The world’s leading scientists have made clear that the climate harms already being felt by millions of Americans—such as the sky-reddening haze over much of California in 2020 from unchecked wildfires—will only get worse if we fail to take immediate action. In November 2019, the United Nations released a report on the global greenhouse gas “emissions gap”—essentially a comparison of where we are versus where we need to be— and concluded that by 2030, global greenhouse gas emissions must be 55 percent lower than 2018 levels in order to limit warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F).[2]
The president and secretary of the Interior have ample authority[3] to take a necessary first step toward closing that gap by ensuring that public lands and waters are part of a comprehensive climate solution that takes “into account the long-term needs of future generations” and avoids “permanent impairment” of public lands entrusted into their care.[4]
An announcement to pause all leasing and permitting approvals for coal, oil, and gas production on public lands and waters should:
● Place an immediate moratorium on the approval, permitting, issuance, or sale of new federal coal, gas, or oil leases, whether onshore or offshore, including a moratorium on extensions or modifications of existing leases and a pause on approvals for any applications to drill. The moratorium should last until the Department of the Interior can implement any changes to these leasing programs based on the environmental review described below.
● Begin a comprehensive environmental review of the climate impacts of fossil fuel development on public lands and waters. This review should address, at a minimum, (1) the environmental, public health, and economic implications of continued federal fossil fuel leasing, including environmental justice, market, and cumulative climate impacts, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act; (2) alternatives to the widespread leasing of federal lands and waters, and (3) whether continued leasing of federal lands and waters is compatible with the nation’s climate goals, including both short- and long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets.
● Initiate consultation with Native American Tribes. The coal leasing moratorium initiated by Secretarial Order 3888 under President Obama expressly did not apply to Native American reservations. Based on the unique trust relationship between the United States and federally recognized Native American Tribes, we encourage President-elect Biden and Secretary Haaland, once confirmed, to begin that consultation process to ensure robust and meaningful discussion with Native American governments and communities, and ensure equitable public participation opportunities are afforded to members of Native American Tribes throughout the environmental review process described above.
● Invest in an equitable and just recovery for communities and workers. As America’s economy continues the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels, workers and communities, states, municipalities, and Tribes that have relied on the coal, oil, and gas industries for jobs and royalties deserve assistance in navigating that transition in a just and equitable manner. The bust side of boom-and-bust extractive industries is here, and the Department of the Interior is well situated to identify needs and propose pathways to ease the burden on impacted workers and communities, particularly after decades of federal policies, subsidies, and incentives that perpetuated the reliance on fossil fuels. More than 100,000 jobs could be created, particularly for former fossil fuel workers, by holding coal, oil, and gas companies accountable for completing their cleanup obligations on public lands.[5]
We look forward to President-elect Biden’s inauguration and to seeing bold action that protects our public lands and leads to swift, effective, and equitable climate solutions. The path forward must begin with an immediate pause on new and expanded coal, oil, and gas leasing on public lands and waters.
[1] Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Secretarial Order No. 3888, at 1, 6 (Jan. 15, 2016)
[2] United Nations Environment Programme, Emissions Gap Report 2019, Executive Summary at v, ix (2019).
[3] See, e.g., John D. Leshy, Interior’s Authority to Curb Fossil Fuel Leasing, Environmental Law Institute (2019) (citing the Mineral Leasing Act, 30 U.S.C. § 201(a) (granting the secretary of the Interior “discretion” to lease coal deposits on public lands) and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1702(j) (authorizing the secretary to withdraw lands for oil and gas leasing to maintain public values)). See also Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1341(a).
[4] 43 U.S.C. § 1702(c).