By SARAH CURRAN
Former Political Director
Republican Party New Mexico
Energy policy emerged as one of the top issues of this election cycle, offering a stark contrast between the two presidential contender’s views on how we power our future.
These policy positions likely played an important role in the electoral outcomes of several key states across the country. Of the many diverging energy policy objectives of the two camps, Joe Biden’s support for a ban on energy leasing on federal lands concerned New Mexicans of all political stripes who recognize the important role access to natural resources plays in the state’s economy.
Over the last decade the energy industry has boomed in New Mexico with oil production increasing almost 250 percent since 2012 and natural gas production surpassing records that have been in place for nearly 20 years. As a result, the oil and gas industry is now the largest economic contributor to the state, supporting 134,000 jobs and adding over $16.6 billion in economic activity: https://www.krwg.org/post/new-report-oil-and-gas
Unfortunately, a campaign pledge from Joe Biden to ban federal and oil gas leasing on public lands threatens to reverse years of growth and prosperity the energy industry has brought the state. If he is to follow through on his pledge as president, it will increase American dependence on foreign energy suppliers while doing little to solve the climate change crisis.
Federal lands make up nearly 32 percent of New Mexico and as a result, a significant amount of energy development in the state occurs on these lands. In fact, over 50 percent of the state’s oil and nearly two-thirds of its natural gas was extracted from federal lands in 2017. Closing off these areas for energy development would devastate the local economy.
A recent report from the American Petroleum Institute (https://www.api.org/~/media/Files/News/2020/09/Consequences_of) found that closing federal lands in the state to energy development would cut oil production by 47 percent and natural gas output by 46 percet. Moreover, the subsequent economic blowback from a leasing ban would cost New Mexico’s education budgets dearly. Public school and higher education received over a billion dollars (https://www.abqjournal.com/1410518/nm-earned-31bn-in-oil) in 2019 from oil and gas revenue. Considering that the state ranks 50th (https://www.krwg.org/post/new-mexico-ranks) in education, the financial loss from a leasing ban will only serve to further impede New Mexico’s most at-risk youth.
Despite her support for green initiatives, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has been forced to face the economic realities of her party’s activism. It appears she has come to the realization that the costs of a ban would be too great. In an interview last year, she noted that she would request that a Democratic President provide her state a waiver from any drilling ban “to allow us to continue to produce in New Mexico (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-drilling/)”
Both America’s national and energy security could be jeopardized as a result of a federal leasing ban. In addition to helping fuel economic growth and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, the booming energy sector of the last 20 years has made the U.S. the world’s biggest energy producer and a net energy exporter (https://www.blm.gov/new-mexico>). This benefits the U.S. both economically and geopolitically, and also has the added benefit of also advancing carbon emissions efforts (https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/) by selling cleaner-burning natural gas in liquefied form to markets around the world.
A federal leasing ban would reverse all this by suffocating domestic oil and gas production and possibly ceding U.S. leadership in the energy arena. It would also create geopolitical opportunities for rivals such as Vladimir Putin (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-energy-russia/russia-fearful-of) and force the U.S. to increase its fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East.
As we’ve often seen in the energy debate, the effects of anti-energy policies like fracking bans would consequently make matters worse for the environment. The advent of natural gas has made the United States a world leader in reducing carbon emissions (https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-) over the past 10 years. Coupled with the fact that natural gas provides a reliability backstop to renewable power sources, it is not difficult to see that eliminating access to natural gas will be counterproductive to reducing emissions in the long term.
Joe Biden spoke about unifying the country in the wake of a highly contested, and caustic election. He must lead with a sober and realistic energy policy.
Encouraging a nationwide ban on oil and gas exploration on public lands (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest) would advance an unpopular, fringe policy that hurts all Americans, especially New Mexicans. A ban will be an imprudent move, which will increase costs for the most vulnerable constituencies in the state, force the U.S. to rely on our global competitors for fuel supply, and worsen environmental conditions in the U.S.
