Category: Uncategorized

  • Time to Step Up to Support Chris Wright

    Time to Step Up to Support Chris Wright

    For years, my friends and I in the oil and natural gas industry have applauded Chris Wright’s leadership in articulating the huge benefits of fossil fuels to humanity, the insanity of a quick “energy transition” and realistic approaches to climate change. Well now it’s time to show our leadership as well and support the Trump administration as it seeks to reverse the very damaging policies Energy Secretary Wright has been standing up to for years.

    The Department of Energy (DOE) recently released a scientific analysis of the impacts of GHGs on the climate and is taking public comment. The Federal Register notice has Wright’s fingerprints all over it, as anyone who’s read his annual Bettering Human Lives reports would recognize. Whereas the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) review of the endangerment finding (see below) adheres to the legal and regulatory issues surrounding the endangerment finding, the DOE report takes on the science.

    DOE’s report forces the climate industrial complex to engage. For years, they’ve refused to “debate” those who have challenged the climate change orthodoxy and have labeled them as deniers or skeptics, as if skepticism isn’t a fundamental component of science. The five authors of the report have for years provided countervailing analysis, raising concerns with the body of climate science and how it’s portrayed to the public. If they’re wrong, then engage and show why.

    Others such as Bjorn Lomborg and Roger Pielke, Jr., who have never denied that climate change is a huge issue, are labeled and shunned as deniers simply because they dig through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and highlight what the scientific studies actually say. Unlike the media gobbling up the political spin, they reveal the best available science used in the IPCC reports regarding weather events and economic impact, for example. Lomborg, Pielke, and the five authors of the DOE report have long been ostracized because they don’t adhere to the climate orthodoxy and alarmism.

    In conjunction with DOE’s review, EPA has embarked on a reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which forms the basis for all subsequent regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change since. The review is a bold step by Administrator Lee Zeldin to reconsider over $1 trillion worth of regulatory cost that has emanated since, with little environmental benefit to show. EPA is reconsidering whether GHGs from vehicles contribute significantly to air pollution that endangers public health. See this Texas Public Policy Foundation piece,  which succinctly explains how a proper endangerment finding would have to show that U.S. GHG emissions contribute significantly to overall global temperatures in order to be subject to the Clean Air Act.

    Secretary Wright and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin are forcing a real debate. Those who have refused to engage must do so now or the comment periods will close and U.S. climate policy will be shaped without them. Should be fascinating.

    Unfortunately, in the “What They’re Saying” EPA release, almost no industry groups voiced support for reconsidering the endangerment finding, other than the Specialty Equipment Market Association and I. A few industry groups expressed support for proposing to repeal the tailpipe emissions standards designed to force a switch from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles, but that’s noncontroversial and bipartisan. I encourage the oil and natural gas industry to engage and am available to help in that regard. Besides providing comments by September 2nd and September 15th, respectively, there are virtual public hearings on August 19th and 20th. The industry has followed Chris Wright’s leadership for years. Now is the time to support him in this important endeavor.  

  • Backlog of Nominees Stalls the Unleashing American Energy Agenda

    Backlog of Nominees Stalls the Unleashing American Energy Agenda

    Over the past few months, I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from public lands stakeholders and policymakers across the West and in D.C. Many have expressed disappointment that I’m not at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to help the administration achieve its goals to unleash American energy as well as to make progress on intractable issues such as certainty in grazing permits and rights-of-way, reducing invasive species, and improving the range.

    But the truth is, even if my nomination hadn’t been tanked, I wouldn’t be there. I’d still be one of 140 other nominees awaiting confirmation by the Senate. For example, Brian Nesvik, the former Director of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department is an excellent nominee for Director of the Fish & Wildlife Service. His confirmation hearing was exactly one week before mine was scheduled, but he remains in Wyoming.

    Senate Republicans and the White House are trying to get all the nominations through before the Senate leaves for the August recess, but Senate Democrats are slow-walking the process. Majority Leader John Thune is threatening to cancel the August recess to convince the minority to allow noncontroversial nominees like Nesvik through.

    Even if he and other key Interior nominees like Leslie Beyer, Assistant Secretary of Land & Minerals clear the Senate floor in August, it will take time for them to get in and get acclimated. It takes time to get rolling in any new job, and the work has been piling up since the start of the Trump Administration. Meanwhile, there still hasn’t been a new nomination for BLM Director. Since it takes several months from nomination to final confirmation, it’s unlikely there will be a confirmed BLM Director this year. In the absence of appointees to do the work, the backlog of leases continues, land use plan revisions languish, and rulemaking remains stalled.

  • Ready to Get Back at It

    Ready to Get Back at It

    After the abrupt withdrawal of my nomination as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), I basically took off the first part of the summer for a much-needed break after nearly 20 years at Western Energy Alliance. But I’m now refreshed and ready to get back at it.

    As an aside, what’s been generally reported in the media is accurate about the events. I have so far only sat down with reporter Scott Streater, for his E&ENews article “Sgamma: ‘Not bitter’ over ill-fated BLM director nomination.” Colorado political analyst Eric Sondermann wrote a Substack piece about the implications for our politics today. I’m happy to discuss it further, for whatever lessons to be learned there may be, but that’s not my topic today.

    Instead, I’m using my first blog post with my new company, Multiple-Use Advocacy, to embark on this new stage in my career. As I said in my withdrawal notice, I remain committed to President Trump’s unleashing American energy agenda and am ready to do what I can to get some things done in the energy and natural resources realm.

    In preparation for my nomination, I reached out to a broad range of stakeholders—from conservation groups to wild horse advocates to other multiple-users of BLM lands—to listen to their concerns and get their input on what needs to be done to advance responsible multiple-use on BLM lands. Whatever we do on public lands, whether inside or outside the government, collaboration and cooperation are essential. BLM continues to need engagement from stakeholders, and I’m ready, willing, and able to contribute to not just unleashing American energy, but to ensuring a balance on federal lands.

    I’ve launched my company in hopes of working with clients to not just navigate regulatory hurdles, but to assist BLM as one of many outside stakeholders. Consider me back and re-engaged.