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The Interior department has announced a new policy intended to accelerate and expand oil and gas drilling on national public lands. According to an Instruction Memorandum released Tuesday, the Bureau of Land Management will shorten its review times for parcels offered for oil and gas leasing to six months, about half of what review times were during the second half of the Biden administration. The memorandum also indicates that the BLM will begin offering parcels that were deferred during previous sales, as well as parcels that were offered but not sold, in future sales, including parcels that have low or no drilling potential.
An Interior department press release noted that the policy changes are meant to support President Donald Trump's "energy dominance" agenda. But Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston, pointed out that oil and gas producers will decide when and where to drill based on global market forces. "Decreasing regulations doesn’t really help because the issue is the top line, the revenue number," Hirs told E&E News. An analysis from S&P Global Commodity Insights, also released Tuesday, predicts that U.S. oil production will actually decline in 2026 due to economic factors, despite the Trump administration's attempts to use policy to force production.
"This pathetic policy to treat environmental reviews like a nuisance aims to further enrich the same oligarchs who’re already hoarding unused oil and gas leases on nearly 10 million acres of public lands," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity, adding that the policy will "do nothing but ensure flawed decisions that lead to successful lawsuits from people who want to protect the public lands, water and wildlife we all love."
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‘Drill, baby, drill’ cannot possibly work.”
