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Yesterday, the Interior Department announced that for the first time U.S. oil production on public lands surpassed 1 billion barrels last year.
While Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist, was happy to trumpet the benefits to industry from the dramatic increase in production of 122.5 million barrels over 2018, not everyone was quite as enthusiastic.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva had this to say about the production milestone: “Instead of announcing how much land has been preserved or how much our climate emissions have gone down, this president only brags about how much oil is being pumped out of our public lands on his watch. These numbers are not making our energy supply more sustainable – they’re just padding Big Oil’s bottom line."
Podcast: Rep. Diana DeGette's legislation to designate wilderness in Colorado
In the latest episode of the Center for Western Priorities' Go West, Young Podcast, a conversation with Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado about her wilderness protection bill that's headed for the House floor this week (the White House issued a statement strongly opposing the package of wilderness bills), as well as the challenges of performing congressional oversight in the Trump era.
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The National Environmental Policy Act has done more than any other law in the last 50 years to protect America’s lands and wildlife and ensure public comment. It’s completely on brand that the Trump administration is cutting the American public out of the process.”
