IPAA Annual Meeting: Organization continues to fight oppressive Biden agenda
As the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s (IPAA’s) Annual Meeting in San Antonio continued on Tuesday afternoon, several senior IPAA staffers gave attendees a candid assessment of the threat posed to the E&P industry by the Biden administration. They also detailed some of the actions that IPAA is taking to protect independent producers from what can only be called an oppressive agenda meant to constrict U.S. oil and gas production.
An overview of Biden actions affecting independents. First up in this afternoon lead-off session was IPAA COO and Executive Vice President Dan Naatz (Fig. 1), who gave attendees a broad overview of the upstream problems caused by the Biden energy agenda, which he says IPAA will be fighting, all the way to the next presidential election in November 2024. Noting that the White House thinks it somehow has moral clarity, Naatz said this is “an empowered administration, where everything is focused on climate. Even the Department of Defense has to deal with climate change.”
Naatz added that the White House is “very aggressive” in its approach to what is an anti-oil-and-gas agenda and “it will be even more aggressive next year, trying to get more of its agenda done before the election.” To counteract the administration, Naatz said that IPAA is working with all of its sister associations in the industry.
He said that the Biden operatives’ priorities on energy issues are as follows:
- Climate
- Low-hanging fruit on federal lands
- Imposing an onslaught of regulations, which equals a whole-of-government approach to stopping American production.
Naatz said that “low-hanging fruit” also can be applied to marginal wells, toward which the Biden group seems to be particularly hostile.
Another wide-ranging problem that he mentioned was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which has been overused and abused for way too long. Passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Richard Nixon on Jan. 1, 1970, NEPA was originally intended to require federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. However, the range of actions covered by NEPA is broad and includes:
- making decisions on permit applications;
- adopting federal land management actions;
- and constructing highways and other publicly-owned facilities.
Naatz said that “NEPA needs to be changed, as it affects way too much of the oil and gas operations.” He also noted that NEPA now affects offshore wind and even airport construction. “Senators [Joe] Manchin (Dem.-W.V.) and [John] Barosso (Rep. – Wyo.) are working together to fix it.”
Naatz concluded his portion of the briefing by noting that “politics will start to impact everything in 2024.”
A look at federal lands and waters. IPAA Vice President of Government Relations Mallori Miller (Fig. 2) focused in greater detail on the situation involving federal lands and waters. She noted that “dozens of rules have been released, or will be released, by the Department of the Interior (DOI) that will have great impacts for the industry.” Miller also pointed out how the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of DOI, has been monkeying with onshore leasing rules, seemingly in an effort to discourage or stop greater onshore oil and gas drilling and development.
Another example of trouble at Interior is the department’s disingenuous, lack-of-good-faith policymaking with respect to the five-year offshore leasing plan. In its latest draft for a five-year plan, only three lease sales are included, and not before 2025. As Miller so eloquently pointed out, the Biden team even admitted, on the record, that were it not for a mandate for offshore sales in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, it would not have included plans for any offshore lease sales.
Another area of Biden DOI abuse has been to use the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a means to stop oil and gas development. “This is the 50th anniversary of ESA, which was signed into law by President Nixon,” explained Miller. “It’s really gone afar from what it was intended to do.” For instance, the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard only occurs in a small area of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. Some DOI officials believe that oil and gas operations in that area hurt the lizard’s habitat, and they want to take some of that acreage off the table. An extended public comment period has been underway, and Miller said “we potentially will see a decision by the end of the year.”
Likewise, ESA is being utilized in the case of the “Rice’s Whale.” This is “a new species of whale originally thought to be the Bryde’s Whale, but it has been determined to be separate. Its habitat falls in the middle of the offshore oil and gas exploration area (Gulf of Mexico), but NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) estimates that fewer than 100 of these whales exist.” Miller said a habitat decision is likely to be made by the end of this year.
Environmental and tax policy. Focusing on another contentious segment of industry concern, IPAA Vice President of Government Relations and Political Affairs Ryan Ullman (Fig. 3) gave further details on the intertwining of environmental and tax policy. “With the COP 28 (U.N. Climate Change Conference) coming shortly (end of this month), we expect this administration to get aggressive and roll out a number of activist proclamations,” said Ullman. And yet, while COP 28 and the Biden administration seem to be targeting oil and gas, the fact is that “the oil and gas industry is fueling and feeding more people than ever (globally), and our emissions are still going down,” added Ullman.
He also noted that the Biden administration is still looking at imposing an SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) climate rule. This, he said, would required publicly traded companies to report on how their operations have affected emissions and the climate. Again, this is obviously targeted toward oil and gas firms. In addition, Ullman said that IPAA is looking at what potential administration measures would affect natural gas producers and, in turn, affect natural gas reliability.
