As climate fight shifts to oil, Biden faces a formidable foe
CASPER, Wyo. — President Joe Biden’s bid to tackle climate change is running straight through the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry — a much bigger, more influential foe than Democrats faced when they took on the coal industry during the Obama years.
Coal dominated U.S. power generation for decades, with the bulk of that fuel coming from the massive strip mines of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — a market that collapsed in recent years as utilities switched to natural gas.
Fast forward to 2021 — and oil and gas have eclipsed coal to become the biggest source of greenhouse emissions from public lands and waters, federal production data indicates. That’s made government fuel sales an irresistible target for Democrats as they try to rein in climate change.
Biden’s election has put big oil companies on the defensive after largely having their way in Washington under President Donald Trump. But in taking on petroleum companies with a moratorium on oil and gas lease sales, Biden picked a foe that spent lavishly over decades to secure allegiance from Republican lawmakers.
The industry is also deeply enmeshed in local economies — from Alaska and the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountain drilling hub of Casper, Wyoming — posing a challenge to the Democrat as he tries to navigate between strong action on the climate and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic’s financial devastation.
“You’re not hurting the big guys that are doing all the development. You’re hurting these little guys that are dreaming up where no one else thought there
was any oil and gas,” said Steve Degenfelder, land manager for family-owned Kirkwood Oil & Gas in Casper, a community of about 60,000.
Trump’s final months in office saw a huge spike in new drilling permits after his administration sped up approvals. As a result, some companies with the biggest presence on public lands have announced that they are ready to weather changes under Biden.
An executive from Devon Energy told investors last month that the company was “ready to roll with the punches” and has about 500 drilling permits in hand. That will last the company for years in Wyoming and New Mexico.
“They expected this ... They prepared for it,” said University of Oklahoma Associate Professor Robert Lifset, who teaches history of the U.S. energy industry. “But the difference now is going to be stark. (Oil and gas companies) don’t get to run energy and environmental policy in the way they once did.”
Gone from power in Washington are former industry lobbyists including Trump’s Interior Department secretary, David Bernhardt, who oversaw a loosening of rules for drilling. They’ve been replaced in many instances with environmentalists and industry critics. Biden’s nominee for Interior secretary, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, has a history of anti-oil activism.
Just a week after his inauguration, Biden announced the sales moratorium while officials review potential climate impacts and whether energy companies are paying enough. He’s following a familiar template — a 2016 Obama-era moratorium on federal coal sales that Trump and other Republicans seized on as evidence of a “war on coal” by Democrats.
That last “war” was against a retreating army: Coal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008 — and by the time of the moratorium, most major coal companies had gone bankrupt and scuttled plans for major expansions.
Editor’s note: Gov. Tom Wolf announced Friday the next round of Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be used for initiatives to vaccinate groups such as law enforcement, grocery workers, corrections officers, career and volunteer fire fighters, and meat processing and agriculture workers.
Essential. This is a word that many have heard of late in the face of one of America’s biggest and gravest challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our health care heroes have worked tirelessly in the battle against COVID-19 on the front lines at hospitals, nursing homes and community clinics.
These workers saved many lives and keep communities safe. They truly earned access to vaccines for their health, safety and that of their patients and families.
What many may not realize is that we, and our co-workers, are also on the front lines. We may not be visible, but every day we help to feed Pennsylvanians.
We make sure our grocery stores are stocked, so families can have the food they need during this crisis. We process and package the food that sits on the dining room table. We work hard each day to ensure the food supply chain remains alive and well in our state and nation.
Without meatpacking, food processing and retail grocery and pharmacy workers, our nation would grind to a halt.
We are both members of United
Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, and we are among the 20,000 plus grocery store and pharmacy workers and the 10,000 food processing workers
our local represents across the state.
We have seen many of our co-workers fall ill or, in some instances, die from COVID-19.
Their memories are not lost and we keep their families in our prayers. Still, despite the risks, our fellow members continue to come to work every day to ensure food is being produced for our communities and our neighbors can purchase food and other essentials safely.
We continue to persevere, despite living with the daily fear of not only becoming sick, but also putting our
families in danger by bringing this deadly virus home. The hands-on nature of our work requires our presence and interaction with our co-workers and the public.
But we need help, leadership and swift action from Pennsylvania’s lawmakers, as we continue to punch the clock throughout the devastating health and economic crisis.
On behalf of all of our co-workers, we are writing to urge Gov. Tom Wolf and Alison Beam, his acting secretary of health, to take appropriate measures to make sure food processing and packinghouse
workers are prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccine.
We have been successful in working with employers across our entire union to enhance safety measures and protocols at our work sites, including our own. We have worked hard, as have the vast majority of employers, to secure personal protective equipment for workers and to institute important safety protocols to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
At many work sites, it was necessary to make significant changes to production areas to help prevent the spread of this deadly virus to allow for proper social distancing.
Our union was very pleased when Gov. Wolf rightly classified all of these workers as essential. The governor was right to classify grocery stores, pharmacies and food processing/packinghouses as lifesaving businesses.
But these businesses cannot remain open without workers, like ourselves, to keep them operating.
We know from our own experiences that our fellow workers are taking an enormous risk every day. A new study by the University of Pennsylvania confirms what we already know about our work: that essential workers have a 55% higher chance of contracting COVID-19 than members of the general public.
Not only are we at greater risk, but the study also found that our family members have a 17% higher chance of contracting the virus.
Now, because of the work of so many scientists and researchers, we can see a light at the end of this dark tunnel. Our nation was key to developing and purchasing millions of COVID-19 vaccines for distribution.
Yet, still, we are waiting for this important resource to protect essential workers like ourselves.
We take pride in nourishing America and benefiting our communities. We are proud to hold good-paying jobs that benefit all Pennsylvanians and our local economies.
But we are also painfully aware that COVID-19 is still a threat. This virus continues to wreak havoc in our communities and among our co-workers and their families.
For the sake of ourselves, our families and our communities, we need to have access to COVID-19 vaccines now. We urge Gov. Wolf and Acting Secretary of Health Beam to make that possible.