The Fossil Fuel Industry is Taking out the ‘Public’ in Public Lands
On Tuesday, March 7, the U.S. Senate voted along party lines to kill guidelines put in place by the Obama administration to increase public involvement in land management decisions. These guidelines, known as Planning 2.0 updated 30-year-old Bureau of Land Management regulations that would have given the American people a bigger voice in how public lands are used, putting them on more equal footing with fossil fuel companies in making decisions that affect how, when, and where energy development occurs. The protections were also put in place to make sure that any conflicts between potential uses of the land, think hunting grounds near oil rigs, could be dealt with at the beginning of the process, instead of after development has already started.
Of course, any federal guidance that ensures that fossil fuel interests are not the primary decision makers on public lands causes an uproar from the oil, gas and coal lobbies — even though the American people think they should have a prominent say in the use of public lands, which, after all, belong to them.
Of this repeal, EnergyWire wrote that “[o]il and gas groups, which said Planning 2.0 unfairly tipped land management decisions away from fossil fuel extraction, celebrated the rule’s repeal.” And the story quoted one lobbyist from the Independent Petroleum Association of America as saying “Keeping the rule would have opened too wide a gate for public input,”
This lobbyist let the cat out of the bag: Anything that benefits the public is bad for the fossil fuel industry, and therefore must be defeated by special interests with deep pockets and the desire to drill anywhere they can.
But our public lands are not owned by the oil and gas industry. They are owned by the American people, and any process that takes us out of the equation needs to be changed.
Now that it has gotten rid of Planning 2.0, the oil and gas lobby is trying to get Congress to repeal BLM’s Methane and Natural Gas Waste Rule. This rule was put in place to stop oil and gas companies from wasting our resources pointlessly. Yet the oil and gas industry seems to think they own the gas that they are burning, venting, and leaking into our air, instead of capturing it for us to use and benefit from.
The oil and gas industry is determined to let the country know that they get to do whatever they want, even on our shared lands. Their lobbyists are working hard to get Congress and the Trump administration to do their bidding. And as we can see with the Planning 2.0 vote on Tuesday, they are succeeding.
But the American people cannot and will not allow it to continue. It is vital that we make sure that our representatives know that repealing the BLM’s Methane Waste Rule will hurt the American people just to benefit the oil and gas industry.
The oil and gas industry are trying to silence the public when it comes to managing our public lands. We must not let this happen.
