Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

U.S. ends public land oil leasing

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BILLINGS, Mont. — The U.S. Interior Department is canceling oil and gas lease sales from public lands through June amid an ongoing review of how the program contribute­s to climate change, officials said Wednesday.

The action does not affect existing leases, and the agency has continued to issue new drilling permits during the open-ended review ordered by the White House, said Nada Culver, deputy director of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.

The petroleum industry and its Republican allies in Congress have said the oil and gas moratorium will harm the economies of Western states without putting a significan­t dent in climate change. There is no end date for the review, but an interim report due this summer could reveal the Biden administra­tion’s long-term plans for lease sales.

Sales had been tentativel­y scheduled in seven states and regions — Nevada, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the bureau’s eastern region, spokespers­on Jeffrey Krauss said.

Officials had previously postponed or suspended lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and many of the same states covered in Wednesday’s move.

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