Trump Admin Keeps Handing Out Fossil Fuels Permits During Shutdown

Well, really, the whole government isn’t actually shutdown

Trump Keeps Oil Permits Moving in Shutdown, Halts Renewables

The Trump administration plans to continue issuing permits for oil drilling and do other work on “priority conventional energy projects” during the government shutdown but will freeze activities on some renewable energy projects.

The Interior Department, which oversees energy development on federal lands and waters, is furloughing thousands of workers but will keep processing permits for new oil and gas projects, coal leases and other energy work, according to its shutdown plan. The department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 245 million acres of public land, said staffers handling those issues are exempt from furloughs in part to address a national energy emergency that President Donald Trump declared earlier this year.

The agency has scheduled dozens of oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska and will continue work on those plans despite the shutdown that began Wednesday. Its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which expects to furlough over 70% of its workers, said it will use carryover funds to keep employees working on “priority conventional energy projects,” including offshore drilling permits and a five-year plan for selling leases along the Outer Continental Shelf. Work on renewable energy projects will cease, according to the agency, which has oversight over offshore energy development.

Good. The US needs energy, and, since Warmists mostly won’t give up their own use, we need more.

Meanwhile

Federal Judge Rules Biden’s Massive Offshore Oil And Gas Ban Was Illegal

Former U.S. President Joe Biden overstepped his authority when he ordered a withdrawal of sizable portions of federal waters from future oil and gas development, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled. [emphasis, links added]

U.S. District Court Judge James Cain in Lake Charles ruled Friday in favor of oil and gas industry groups and attorneys general in five states.

They sued to block Biden’s action to prohibit the development of 625 million acres in federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of America, and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska.

Biden, in his final month in office, issued a memorandum that withdrew the areas from oil and gas leasing, citing his authority under the 72-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

President Donald Trump, on the first day of his second term, issued an executive order that repealed Biden’s memoranda.

Cain ruled that Biden’s withdrawal was illegal because it was intended to be permanent. The judge said President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of lands from oil and gas leasing was also illegal.

Funny that Obama and Biden would do this, considering their own massive use of fossil fuels.