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"Banning new development of oil and gas on federal lands would be significant for the climate and the protection of some of our most treasured historical sites and national parks," wrote Food & Water Watch's Mark Schlosberg. (Photo: SMelindo/flickr/cc)
"Let's Turn This 'Temporary Halt' to Permanent Ban": Biden Praised for Pause on Drilling Leases
"The federal oil and gas program is nothing but an injustice," said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.
Jan 20, 2021
President Joe Biden signaled his intention Wednesday to follow through on a campaign promise with a 60-day pause on new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands.
The action is one of several climate-related actions the new administration has taken in its first hours.
According to The Hill, the announcement came in a Wednesday memo from Scott de la Vega, who is acting as chief of the Interior Department until Biden's nominee for the post, Congresswoman Deb Haaland, is confirmed by the Senate.
The pause, the outlet reported, "bars the department from pushing ahead with any new leasing or drilling permits. It also blocks any new major mining actions."
Conservation and Indigenous groups had urged Biden to block drilling on public lands and saw Haaland's nomination as hope that "exploitation of public lands by fossil fuel corporations"--and related plant-warming emissions--would be stopped.
The Interior Department's announcement was welcomed by Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. Henn said Biden must now follow through by turning "this 'temporary halt' into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development."
\u201cNo new drilling on public lands!!!!! \n\nThank you @JoeBiden for keeping your pledge! \n\nNow, let\u2019s turn this \u201ctemporary halt\u201d into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development!\u201d— Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn) 1611255193
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, speaking Wednesday at the Biden White House's first press conference, suggested that a permanent ban could be forthcoming. Asked if the administration still had a commitment to ending oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Psaki replied, "We do and the leases will be reviewed by our team."
That would be good news for the climate, advocacy group Food & Water Watch's Mark Schlosberg wrote in a blog post earlier Wednesday:
Banning new development of oil and gas on federal lands would be significant for the climate and the protection of some of our most treasured historical sites and national parks. Between now and 2050, new drilling on federal lands could produce the carbon equivalent of 1,000 coal fired power plants at a time when we need to be dramatically reducing our carbon emissions. Further, oil and gas production on federal lands is increasingly threatening some of our most iconic national parks and historic sites including Grand Teton, the Everglades, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Chaco Canyon.
Leasing of federal land for oil and gas development has increased under [former President Donald] Trump. According to the Wilderness Society Action Fund and the Guardian, his administration has leased 5.4 million acres of public land for oil and gas development--an area the size of New Jersey. Coupled with his gutting of already too weak regulations of the production and transport of oil and gas, Trump's actions have recklessly increased emissions and pushed us even closer to climate chaos.
But just putting a pause on drilling on federal lands would not be enough, said Schlosberg. "After all," he wrote, "over 10 million acres of land were leased under Trump and the last term of Obama-Biden alone, making our efforts to move off fossil fuels all the more difficult." What's necessary, he wrote, is "bold vision and leadership to move the country completely off fossil fuels."
What's more, reporting by Reuters Thursday also suggests climate action advocates may have to wait to break out the champagne:
Biden's pledge would reverse former President Donald Trump's efforts to maximize drilling and mining on federal property. But it will not end production in those areas overnight.
The seven companies that control half the federal supply onshore in the Lower 48 states have leases and permits in hand that could last years. [...]
Representatives at [several major oil] companies did not comment for this article. But several have issued public statements saying they have solid stockpiles of federal permits and an ability to meet tougher emissions regulations expected under Biden. They have also said they can quickly shift drilling to state or private acreage once federal permits dry up.
EOG has said it has at least four years of federal permits. "When it comes to access to federal lands, that's one of the things we're not really worried about in our business. We have a lot of potential outside of federal land, too," Chief Operating Officer Billy Helms said during an investor conference last year.
Conservation groups, meanwhile, continue to pursue legal actions to overturn Trump administration-approved sales of public lands for fracking. One lawsuit filed last week by WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center challenges hundreds of oil and gas leases spanning over 1 million acres in the western U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
"The federal oil and gas program is nothing but an injustice," Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a Thursday statement. "President Biden needs to put public lands to work for people and the climate, not for the fossil fuel industry."
Apart from the temporary halt on leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands, immediate climate actions the Biden administration has already been able to take have so far included revoking the presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline, pausing leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and beginning the process to officially rejoin the Paris climate accord.
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President Joe Biden signaled his intention Wednesday to follow through on a campaign promise with a 60-day pause on new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands.
The action is one of several climate-related actions the new administration has taken in its first hours.
According to The Hill, the announcement came in a Wednesday memo from Scott de la Vega, who is acting as chief of the Interior Department until Biden's nominee for the post, Congresswoman Deb Haaland, is confirmed by the Senate.
The pause, the outlet reported, "bars the department from pushing ahead with any new leasing or drilling permits. It also blocks any new major mining actions."
Conservation and Indigenous groups had urged Biden to block drilling on public lands and saw Haaland's nomination as hope that "exploitation of public lands by fossil fuel corporations"--and related plant-warming emissions--would be stopped.
The Interior Department's announcement was welcomed by Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. Henn said Biden must now follow through by turning "this 'temporary halt' into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development."
\u201cNo new drilling on public lands!!!!! \n\nThank you @JoeBiden for keeping your pledge! \n\nNow, let\u2019s turn this \u201ctemporary halt\u201d into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development!\u201d— Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn) 1611255193
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, speaking Wednesday at the Biden White House's first press conference, suggested that a permanent ban could be forthcoming. Asked if the administration still had a commitment to ending oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Psaki replied, "We do and the leases will be reviewed by our team."
That would be good news for the climate, advocacy group Food & Water Watch's Mark Schlosberg wrote in a blog post earlier Wednesday:
Banning new development of oil and gas on federal lands would be significant for the climate and the protection of some of our most treasured historical sites and national parks. Between now and 2050, new drilling on federal lands could produce the carbon equivalent of 1,000 coal fired power plants at a time when we need to be dramatically reducing our carbon emissions. Further, oil and gas production on federal lands is increasingly threatening some of our most iconic national parks and historic sites including Grand Teton, the Everglades, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Chaco Canyon.
Leasing of federal land for oil and gas development has increased under [former President Donald] Trump. According to the Wilderness Society Action Fund and the Guardian, his administration has leased 5.4 million acres of public land for oil and gas development--an area the size of New Jersey. Coupled with his gutting of already too weak regulations of the production and transport of oil and gas, Trump's actions have recklessly increased emissions and pushed us even closer to climate chaos.
But just putting a pause on drilling on federal lands would not be enough, said Schlosberg. "After all," he wrote, "over 10 million acres of land were leased under Trump and the last term of Obama-Biden alone, making our efforts to move off fossil fuels all the more difficult." What's necessary, he wrote, is "bold vision and leadership to move the country completely off fossil fuels."
What's more, reporting by Reuters Thursday also suggests climate action advocates may have to wait to break out the champagne:
Biden's pledge would reverse former President Donald Trump's efforts to maximize drilling and mining on federal property. But it will not end production in those areas overnight.
The seven companies that control half the federal supply onshore in the Lower 48 states have leases and permits in hand that could last years. [...]
Representatives at [several major oil] companies did not comment for this article. But several have issued public statements saying they have solid stockpiles of federal permits and an ability to meet tougher emissions regulations expected under Biden. They have also said they can quickly shift drilling to state or private acreage once federal permits dry up.
EOG has said it has at least four years of federal permits. "When it comes to access to federal lands, that's one of the things we're not really worried about in our business. We have a lot of potential outside of federal land, too," Chief Operating Officer Billy Helms said during an investor conference last year.
Conservation groups, meanwhile, continue to pursue legal actions to overturn Trump administration-approved sales of public lands for fracking. One lawsuit filed last week by WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center challenges hundreds of oil and gas leases spanning over 1 million acres in the western U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
"The federal oil and gas program is nothing but an injustice," Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a Thursday statement. "President Biden needs to put public lands to work for people and the climate, not for the fossil fuel industry."
Apart from the temporary halt on leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands, immediate climate actions the Biden administration has already been able to take have so far included revoking the presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline, pausing leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and beginning the process to officially rejoin the Paris climate accord.
President Joe Biden signaled his intention Wednesday to follow through on a campaign promise with a 60-day pause on new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands.
The action is one of several climate-related actions the new administration has taken in its first hours.
According to The Hill, the announcement came in a Wednesday memo from Scott de la Vega, who is acting as chief of the Interior Department until Biden's nominee for the post, Congresswoman Deb Haaland, is confirmed by the Senate.
The pause, the outlet reported, "bars the department from pushing ahead with any new leasing or drilling permits. It also blocks any new major mining actions."
Conservation and Indigenous groups had urged Biden to block drilling on public lands and saw Haaland's nomination as hope that "exploitation of public lands by fossil fuel corporations"--and related plant-warming emissions--would be stopped.
The Interior Department's announcement was welcomed by Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. Henn said Biden must now follow through by turning "this 'temporary halt' into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development."
\u201cNo new drilling on public lands!!!!! \n\nThank you @JoeBiden for keeping your pledge! \n\nNow, let\u2019s turn this \u201ctemporary halt\u201d into a permanent ban and a plan to phase out all fossil fuel development!\u201d— Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn) 1611255193
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, speaking Wednesday at the Biden White House's first press conference, suggested that a permanent ban could be forthcoming. Asked if the administration still had a commitment to ending oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Psaki replied, "We do and the leases will be reviewed by our team."
That would be good news for the climate, advocacy group Food & Water Watch's Mark Schlosberg wrote in a blog post earlier Wednesday:
Banning new development of oil and gas on federal lands would be significant for the climate and the protection of some of our most treasured historical sites and national parks. Between now and 2050, new drilling on federal lands could produce the carbon equivalent of 1,000 coal fired power plants at a time when we need to be dramatically reducing our carbon emissions. Further, oil and gas production on federal lands is increasingly threatening some of our most iconic national parks and historic sites including Grand Teton, the Everglades, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Chaco Canyon.
Leasing of federal land for oil and gas development has increased under [former President Donald] Trump. According to the Wilderness Society Action Fund and the Guardian, his administration has leased 5.4 million acres of public land for oil and gas development--an area the size of New Jersey. Coupled with his gutting of already too weak regulations of the production and transport of oil and gas, Trump's actions have recklessly increased emissions and pushed us even closer to climate chaos.
But just putting a pause on drilling on federal lands would not be enough, said Schlosberg. "After all," he wrote, "over 10 million acres of land were leased under Trump and the last term of Obama-Biden alone, making our efforts to move off fossil fuels all the more difficult." What's necessary, he wrote, is "bold vision and leadership to move the country completely off fossil fuels."
What's more, reporting by Reuters Thursday also suggests climate action advocates may have to wait to break out the champagne:
Biden's pledge would reverse former President Donald Trump's efforts to maximize drilling and mining on federal property. But it will not end production in those areas overnight.
The seven companies that control half the federal supply onshore in the Lower 48 states have leases and permits in hand that could last years. [...]
Representatives at [several major oil] companies did not comment for this article. But several have issued public statements saying they have solid stockpiles of federal permits and an ability to meet tougher emissions regulations expected under Biden. They have also said they can quickly shift drilling to state or private acreage once federal permits dry up.
EOG has said it has at least four years of federal permits. "When it comes to access to federal lands, that's one of the things we're not really worried about in our business. We have a lot of potential outside of federal land, too," Chief Operating Officer Billy Helms said during an investor conference last year.
Conservation groups, meanwhile, continue to pursue legal actions to overturn Trump administration-approved sales of public lands for fracking. One lawsuit filed last week by WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center challenges hundreds of oil and gas leases spanning over 1 million acres in the western U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
"The federal oil and gas program is nothing but an injustice," Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a Thursday statement. "President Biden needs to put public lands to work for people and the climate, not for the fossil fuel industry."
Apart from the temporary halt on leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands, immediate climate actions the Biden administration has already been able to take have so far included revoking the presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline, pausing leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and beginning the process to officially rejoin the Paris climate accord.
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LATEST NEWS
Report Warns of Anti-Family Pronatalist Movement's Growing Influence on Trump White House
"Underneath shiny motherhood medals and promises of baby bonuses is a movement intent on elevating white supremacist ideology and forcing women out of the workplace," said one advocate.
Aug 13, 2025
The Trump administration's push for Americans to have more children has been well documented, from Vice President JD Vance's insults aimed at "childless cat ladies" to officials' meetings with "pronatalist" advocates who want to boost U.S. birth rates, which have been declining since 2007.
But a report released by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) on Wednesday details how the methods the White House have reportedly considered to convince Americans to procreate moremay be described by the far right as "pro-family," but are actually being pushed by a eugenicist, misogynist movement that has little interest in making it any easier to raise a family in the United States.
The proposals include bestowing a "National Medal of Motherhood" on women who have more than six children, giving a $5,000 "baby bonus" to new parents, and prioritizing federal projects in areas with high birth rates.
"Underneath shiny motherhood medals and promises of baby bonuses is a movement intent on elevating white supremacist ideology and forcing women out of the workplace," said Emily Martin, chief program officer of the National Women's Law Center.
The report describes how "Silicon Valley tech elites" and traditional conservatives who oppose abortion rights and even a woman's right to work outside the home have converged to push for "preserving the traditional family structure while encouraging women to have a lot of children."
With pronatalists often referring to "declining genetic quality" in the U.S. and promoting the idea that Americans must produce "good quality children," in the words of evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman, the pronatalist movement "is built on racist, sexist, and anti-immigrant ideologies."
If conservatives are concerned about population loss in the U.S., the report points out, they would "make it easier for immigrants to come to the United States to live and work. More immigrants mean more workers, which would address some of the economic concerns raised by declining birth rates."
But pronatalists "only want to see certain populations increase (i.e., white people), and there are many immigrants who don't fit into that narrow qualification."
The report, titled "Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn't Trust the Pronatalist Movement," describes how President Donald Trump has enlisted a "pronatalist army" that's been instrumental both in pushing a virulently anti-immigrant, mass deportation agenda and in demanding that more straight couples should marry and have children, as the right-wing policy playbook Project 2025 demands.
Trump's former adviser and benefactor, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, has spoken frequently about the need to prevent a collapse of U.S. society and civilization by raising birth rates, and has pushed misinformation fearmongering about birth control.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proposed rewarding areas with high birth rates by prioritizing infrastructure projects, and like Vance has lobbed insults at single women while also deriding the use of contraception.
The report was released days after CNN detailed the close ties the Trump administration has with self-described Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson, who heads the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, preaches that women should not vote, and suggested in an interview with correspondent Pamela Brown that women's primary function is birthing children, saying they are "the kind of people that people come out of."
Wilson has ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose children attend schools founded by the pastor and who shared the video online with the tagline of Wilson's church, "All of Christ for All of Life."
But the NWLC noted, no amount of haranguing women over their relationship status, plans for childbearing, or insistence that they are primarily meant to stay at home with "four or five children," as Wilson said, can reverse the impact the Trump administration's policies have had on families.
"While the Trump administration claims to be pursuing a pro-baby agenda, their actions tell a different story," the report notes. "Rather than advancing policies that would actually support families—like lowering costs, expanding access to housing and food, or investing in child care—they've prioritized dismantling basic need supports, rolling back longstanding civil rights protections, and ripping away people's bodily autonomy."
The report was published weeks after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law—making pregnancy more expensive and more dangerous for millions of low-income women by slashing Medicaid funding and "endangering the 42 million women and children" who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for their daily meals.
While demanding that women have more children, said the NWLC, Trump has pushed an "anti-women, anti-family agenda."
Martin said that unlike the pronatalist movement, "a real pro-family agenda would include protecting reproductive healthcare, investing in childcare as a public good, promoting workplace policies that enable parents to succeed, and ensuring that all children have the resources that they need to thrive not just at birth, but throughout their lives."
"The administration's deep hostility toward these pro-family policies," said Martin, "tells you all that you need to know about pronatalists' true motives.”
Rights Group Pushes Delaware AG to Revoke Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's Corporate Charter
A Center for Constitutional Rights lawyer called on Kathy Jennings to "use her power to stop this dangerous entity that is masquerading as a charitable organization while furthering death and violence in Gaza."
Aug 13, 2025
A leading U.S. legal advocacy group on Wednesday urged Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings to pursue revoking the corporate charter of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose aid distribution points in the embattled Palestinian enclave have been the sites of near-daily massacres in which thousands of Palestinians have reportedly been killed or wounded.
Last week, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urgently requested a meeting with Jennings, a Democrat, whom the group asserted has a legal obligation to file suit in the state's Chancery Court to seek revocation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's (GHF) charter because the purported charity "is complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide."
CCR said Wednesday that Jennings "has neither responded" to the group's request "nor publicly addressed the serious claims raised against the Delaware-registered entity."
"GHF woefully fails to adhere to fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence and has proven to be an opportunistic and obsequious entity masquerading as a humanitarian organization," CCR asserted. "Since the start of its operations in late May, at least 1,400 Palestinians have died seeking aid, with at least 859 killed at or near GHF sites, which it operates in close coordination with the Israeli government and U.S. private military contractors."
One of those contractors, former U.S. Army Green Beret Col. Anthony Aguilar, quit his job and blew the whistle on what he said he saw while working at GHF aid sites.
"What I saw on the sites, around the sites, to and from the sites, can be described as nothing but war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of international law," Aguilar told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman earlier this month. "This is not hyperbole. This is not platitudes or drama. This is the truth... The sites were designed to lure, bait aid, and kill."
Israel Defense Forces officers and soldiers have admitted to receiving orders to open fire on Palestinian aid-seekers with live bullets and artillery rounds, even when the civilians posed no security threat.
"It is against this backdrop that [President Donald] Trump's State Department approved a $30 million United States Agency for International Development grant for GHF," CCR noted. "In so doing, the State Department exempted it from the audit usually required for new USAID grantees."
"It also waived mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards and overrode vetting mechanisms, including 58 internal objections to GHF's application," the group added. "The Center for Constitutional Rights has submitted a [Freedom of Information Act] request seeking information on the administration's funding of GHF."
CCR continued:
The letter to Jennings opens a new front in the effort to hold GHF accountable. The Center for Constitutional Rights letter provides extensive evidence that, far from alleviating suffering in Gaza, GHF is contributing to the forced displacement, illegal killing, and genocide of Palestinians, while serving as a fig leaf for Israel's continued denial of access to food and water. Given this, Jennings has not only the authority, but the obligation to investigate GHF to determine if it abused its charter by engaging in unlawful activity. She may then file suit with the Court of Chancery, which has the authority to revoke GHF's charter.
CCR's August 5 letter notes that Jennings has previously exercised such authority. In 2019, she filed suit to dissolve shell companies affiliated with former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Richard Gates after they pleaded guilty to money laundering and other crimes.
"Attorney General Jennings has the power to significantly change the course of history and save lives by taking action to dissolve GHF," said CCR attorney Adina Marx-Arpadi. "We call on her to use her power to stop this dangerous entity that is masquerading as a charitable organization while furthering death and violence in Gaza, and to do so without delay."
CCR's request follows a call earlier this month by a group of United Nations experts for the "immediate dismantling" of GHF, as well as "holding it and its executives accountable and allowing experienced and humanitarian actors from the U.N. and civil society alike to take back the reins of managing and distributing lifesaving aid."
As Deadline Looms, Advocates Call Plastics Treaty Draft 'Nothing Short of a Betrayal'
"The process has been completely captured by swarms of fossil fuel lobbyists and shamefully weaponized by low-ambition countries," said the CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Aug 13, 2025
Multiple nations, as well as climate and environmental activists, are expressing dismay at the current state of a potential treaty to curb global plastics pollution.
As The Associated Press reported on Wednesday, negotiators of the treaty are discussing a new draft that would contain no restrictions on plastic production or on the chemicals used in plastics. This draft would adopt the approach favored by many big oil-producing nations who have argued against limits on plastic production and have instead pushed for measures such as better design, recycling, and reuse.
This new draft drew the ire of several nations in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, who all said that it was too weak in addressing the real harms being done by plastic pollution.
"Let me be clear—this is not acceptable for future generations," said Erin Silsbe, the representative for Canada.
According to a report from Health Policy Watch, Panama delegate Juan Carlos Monterrey got a round of applause from several other delegates in the room when he angrily denounced the new draft.
"Our red lines, and the red lines of the majority of countries represented in this room, were not only expunged, they were spat on, and they were burned," he fumed.
Several advocacy organizations were even more scathing in their assessments.
Eirik Lindebjerg, the global plastics policy adviser for WWF, bluntly said that "this is not a treaty" but rather "a devastating blow to everyone here and all those around the world suffering day in and day out as a result of plastic pollution."
"It lacks the bare minimum of measures and accountability to actually be effective, with no binding global bans on harmful products and chemicals and no way for it to be strengthened over time," Lindebjerg continued. "What's more it does nothing to reflect the ambition and demands of the majority of people both within and outside the room. This is not what people came to Geneva for. After three years of negotiations, this is deeply concerning."
Steve Trent, the CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, declared the new draft "nothing short of a betrayal" and encouraged delegates from around the world to roundly reject it.
"The process has been completely captured by swarms of fossil fuel lobbyists and shamefully weaponized by low-ambition countries," he said. "The failure now risks being total, with the text actively backsliding rather than improving."
According to the Center for International Environmental Law, at least 234 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered for the talks in Switzerland, meaning they "outnumber the combined diplomatic delegations of all 27 European Union nations and the E.U."
Nicholas Mallos, vice president of Ocean Conservancy's ocean plastics program, similarly called the new draft "unacceptable" and singled out that the latest text scrubbed references to abandoned or discarded plastic fishing gear, commonly referred to as "ghost gear," which he described as "the deadliest form of plastic pollution to marine life."
"The science is clear: To reduce plastic pollution, we must make and use less plastic to begin with, so a treaty without reduction is a failed treaty," Mallos emphasized.
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