Democrats separate from Obama's book with aggressive climate plans

White House Democrats Set Up Aggressive Plans to Fight Climate Change That Show a Clear Breakdown from Former President Barack Obama in Prohibiting the Production of New Fossil Fuels on Federal Lands .

This represents a turnaround by the Trump administration that aims to increase fossil fuel production in the United States and go beyond the climate policies implemented by Obama, who has often touted the rise in US energy production. fracking during his tenure at the White House.

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The 10 candidates taking part in CNN's plenary session on climate change on Wednesday, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) And Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Proposed to suspend new leases to mine the energy deposits of millions of acres on both land and offshore, sign that the party has adopted the position of green groups that have long pushed to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

"Everything went to eleven," said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a group of oil and gas companies. "You pick a subject and it's as if President Obama could just as easily have been a Republican."

Federal lands are one of the few areas in which an administration can dramatically change energy development without relying on congressional action. Fossil fuels from land under federal control accounted for about one-quarter of US carbon dioxide emissions between 2005 and 2014, according to the United States Geological Survey. It is also a cash cow: revenues from the production of oil and gas from federal power plants exceeded $ 8 billion in 2018, according to the Bureau of Natural Resources.

But while the latest reports from scientists belonging to groups such as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stress that time is running out to avert a catastrophic warming, a new group of young activists from the United organizations like the Sunrise Movement have joined older environmental groups to put pressure on the Democrats. take aggressive measures.

"President Obama was a favorable target for the climate campaign, but he was never the climate champion we needed. We should have seen the promises made by the candidates a decade ago, "said Jenny Marienau, political campaign manager at 350Action.

Energy lobbyists believe that the introduction of an absolute ban by decree or other political mechanism would likely violate several laws, even though it did not deter female candidates such as Warren, who announced that she would impose a moratorium on new leases on his first day in office.

And a president simply can not expel energy companies from their ongoing activities on federal lands without awarding them compensation. Thousands of existing leases would likely remain in effect. Businesses can also keep leases for 10 years at a time.

"Almost all candidates are committed to immediately or quickly terminating the lease on public land and we hope that they will find the mechanisms," said Marienau.

Some candidates acknowledged that this legal impediment precluded the cancellation of existing leases, and Warren and Biden stated that they would only block the new lease of fossil fuels. But Sanders' climate plan called for "an immediate end to any existing or new fossil fuel extraction on federal public lands," while Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) Is considering "phasing out" existing leases .

Energy lobbyists and lawyers recognize that a president has many ways to frustrate energy companies within the confines of the law.

The Mineral Leasing Act encourages, but does not require, the leasing of federal lands for the development of mineral resources. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act encourages land use for multiple purposes, but does not dictate how. The law of the outer continental shelf lands provides for the leasing of offshore waters for energy development "in a manner consistent with the maintenance of competition and other national needs".

"A new president could certainly make it much harder to drill and produce on federal lands, but it will be very difficult to print an emergency brake," said Larry Nettles, environmental law lawyer. at Vinson & Elkins LLP. in Houston.

The Obama administration has exploited this legal latitude, adding carbon costs to environmental studies and other obstacles for fossil fuel projects. It took a series of public meetings to finalize the federal land management plans. It proposed new rules for oil and gas producers to reduce methane pollution on federal lands.

Although the Trump has spoiled these policies since taking office, they could go back.

"If you're considering what a Democratic president could do, he could do a lot of things like at the end of the Obama administration to weigh down the leasing process," said Mr. Nettles. "The producers will go elsewhere. And that's what they did under the Obama administration. "

Stopping new drilling, or even existing drilling, on federal lands would have little impact on overall US production, as the vast majority of oil and gas production is done on private land in Texas in North Dakota and in other states, said Pavel Molchanov, energy analyst at Raymond James. . Such a ban could also be reversed when a new government takes office.

Overall oil and gas production on federal lands has declined each year between 2009 and 2017, according to the Congressional Research Service. This slowdown occurred as companies spent money on fracking in shale fields that relied heavily on private land rather than in places like the Gulf of Mexico. In the United States, less than a quarter of oil production currently comes from federal lands and only about 13% from natural gas.

"Regulatory changes are not only limited in scope, they are also time-limited," Molchanov said. "It can be undone as easily as originally. Anything that really changes the game should go through Congress. "

The House Democrats sought to solve the problem. The Rules Committee of the House announced Tuesday that it would consider amendments to extend a moratorium on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, to ban energy development in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge and to prevent exploration off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

These efforts are unlikely to advance in the Senate in the hands of Republicans, who according to polls will remain under the control of the GOP after 2020. Without congressional help, there are limits to what a president Democrat could actually do to eliminate federal oil, gas and coal. production.

"I see them as very difficult to implement and focus on other issues," said McKie Campbell, former director of Republican staff at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. "I think both sides have gone to extremes, which is very bad. Right now, there is tremendous pressure to swear allegiance to things. "

Biden, Warren, Sanders and others said they would bring back and reinforce Obama's methane rules. They also committed to prioritizing wildlife conservation over energy development, a political maneuver that could effectively block oil, gas and coal, Nettles said.

Some candidates, such as Bete and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have also suggested increasing royalty rates for existing leases, increasing the amount that companies pay to the federal government for energy. sold on public land. Biden said he wanted these rates to reflect the cost of climate change.

But the party's environmental faction warned that the mere return to Obama's climate strategy would not have done so.

"There is a trap now in the candidates who say we are going to cancel everything the Trump administration has done and go back to Obama 's policies because they have never been strong enough" said Marienau.

By doing so, with agency discretion, it can be "very difficult" to operate on federal lands, said Dan Naatz, the government's first vice-president of government relations and political affairs. Independent Petroleum Association of America.

"It certainly worried us," he said. "We have work to do."