![]() API President and CEO Mike Sommers, in an op-ed on : liquified natural gas exports are critical for today and tomorrow, because access to trustworthy energy helps nations address multiple challenges. With Russian tanks encircling Kyiv and Russian artillery pounding Ukrainian civilians, the importance of American energy could hardly be clearer. economy and, when exported, provide significant support for economies around the world. American-made oil and gas are the leading energy sources running the U.S. President Biden strongly encouraged made-in-the-USA production during his State of the Union address this week – but omitted home-grown oil and gas. Now is the time for the administration to fully get behind American oil and natural gas. This is the path to sound energy policy that keeps America safe and strong and allows American energy to support allies. The current situation is a reminder that American energy abundance requires foresight and planning, investment and policy support. All last summer, the administration called on OPEC+, the oil cartel, to increase its production more rapidly in the face of rising energy costs, bypassing American producers. energy industry and chilled future investment by signaling that oil and gas wouldn’t be part of America’s future energy mix. It canceled energy infrastructure, blocked development in parts of Alaska, entertained new taxes to punish the U.S. For more than a year it has halted new federal leasing – key to future energy investment and production. Instead, the administration discouraged American energy. production might have helped deter Moscow from thinking that European nations dependent on Russian energy might do less to oppose Russia the aggressor. Then, Biden administration support for robust U.S. The time for helping Ukraine with American energy was months ago. Technically, there’s some truth there because, indeed, increasing American oil and gas production will not help Ukraine today. Now, for the second claim, about the usefulness of American energy to Ukraine. Mischaracterizing the way federal leases work does not help foster new investment and risk-taking. Specifically, they impact the ability of producers – typically accountable to shareholders – to take the risks involved in spending billions of dollars to find and develop oil and gas. Ultimately, energy policies affect the energy investment climate. American oil and gas producers are able and willing to do their part to support American energy leadership, including providing energy that can help allies abroad. It suggests American producers have been motivated by a desire to manipulate the market during the current crisis in Europe. The argument about “unused” leases is a red herring, a smokescreen for energy policies that have had a hamstringing effect on the world’s leading producer of natural gas and oil. The lengthy process to develop them from a lease often is extended by administrative and legal challenges at every step along the way. Developing a lease takes years and substantial effort to determine whether the underlying geology holds commercial quantities of oil and/or gas.For federal onshore, the Mineral Leasing Act prevents any one company from locking up unproductive excessive federal acreage.When a company acquires a lease, it makes a significant financial investment at the beginning of the lease in the form of a non-refundable bonus bid and pays additional rent until and unless it begins producing.The law already requires companies to either produce oil and/or gas on leases or return the leases to the government – the so-called “use it or lose it” provision – generally in the first 10 years.It has become a line the White House pivots to when pressed to explain why it isn’t doing more to support American oil and gas production – with soaring demand putting upward pressure on prices and with much of Europe at the mercy of its top energy provider, Russia. Key facts about federal leases: ![]() Psaki has made the claim about “unused” federal leases before. production will not help the Ukrainian people today. The second, by some industry opponents, is that ramping up U.S. The first, by some members of the Biden administration, including White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday, is that American oil and natural gas producers are sitting on hundreds of unused federal leases and thus do not need access to more. Let’s address two claims heard about American natural gas and oil production amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.
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