Hey all,
Down in the Keys for a few weeks. Had a few good days fishing before a late cold front pushed through yesterday. Really windy for now, but hoping that will improve for the Cow and Bull Dolphin Tournament next weekend.
A few add ons for my post this week:
This is from The Dispatch:
The White House Council on Environmental Quality reimplemented and strengthened a series of National Environmental Policy Act regulations on Tuesday that had been revoked under the Trump administration. Under the latest rules, federal agencies must evaluate all the “direct,” “indirect,” and “cumulative” environmental impacts of new infrastructure projects—including pipelines, highways, power plants, etc.—before approving them.
This makes the cost and risk of building infrastructure even greater. What we need is a realistic plan to ease out of fossil fuels—not kill the most cost-effective fuel source we have. This is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
And this from the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would resume selling leases for new oil and gas drilling on public lands, but would also raise the federal royalties that companies must pay to drill, the first increase in those fees in more than a century.
The Interior Department said in a statement that it planned next week to auction off leases to drill on 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states. They would be the first new fossil fuel leases to be offered on public lands since President Biden took office.
The move comes as President Biden seeks to show voters that he is working to increase the domestic oil supply as prices surge in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it also violates a signature campaign pledge made by Mr. Biden as he sought to assure climate activists that he would prioritize reducing the use of fossil fuels.
“And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period,” Mr. Biden told voters in New Hampshire in February 2020.
This is another nickel and dime half-measure from an administration that operates in sound-bite headlines instead of a fully thought out plan. This is more in the same with his waiver of the summer ethanol restrictions, which will affect 2,300 gas pumps nationwide (yes, that’s individual pumps). It’s a lot of hyperbole over very little production as only 10% of our domestic production comes from Federal land leases. The other 90% comes from state and private land.
Making “sweeping changes” for headlines is no way to run a country.
Thanks for update
I agree with your comments and appreciate your clearly stated point of view.