EDITORIAL: Biden seeks political cover from his own energy agenda

Radical greens were seeing red last week when the White House announced it will open up more public lands — including in Nevada — to oil and gas development. But while the move represents a tiny step forward, it seems more political cover than a serious policy advancement.

On Friday, the Interior Department announced it will auction off leases to drill on 145,000 acres in nine states. The mewling from environmentalists was over the top. “It’s as if they’re ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods and megadroughts,” said Randi Spivak of the Center for Biological Diversity, “and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual.”

Keep in mind this is the same organization that, despite professing support for renewable energy, routinely fights to quash such projects. In Nevada, the group is opposing efforts to tap geothermal resources at Dixie Meadows, about 125 miles east of Reno, while also trying to scuttle a lithium mine near Rhyolite Ridge west of Tonopah which would produce material vital to make the electric vehicle batteries.

Yet the alternative to stifling energy production isn’t a more idyllic world, it’s economic dysfunction and abject poverty. For President Joe Biden, it’s also a one-term presidency. Green technology isn’t ready to meet the country’s energy needs, and with inflation soaring and gasoline prices higher than $5 a gallon in many places, Mr. Biden has to look like he’s doing something.

The administration’s true motivation was revealed in the fine print of the Interior announcement. Along with a few new lease auctions, the government will raise the cost of federal royalties by 50 percent. This has the potential to actually discourage energy exploration. “Mr. Biden appears to be trying to walk a line,” The New York Times reported, “between trying to both lower gas prices and fight climate change.”

Energy producers were less forgiving.

“It’s a mixed message and strangely incoherent,” Jeff Eshelman, the chief operating officer of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, told the Times. “This administration has begged for more oil from foreign nations, blames American energy producers for price gouging and sitting on leases. Now, on a late holiday announcement, under pressure, it announces a lease sale with major royalty increases that will add uncertainty to drilling plans for years.”

Mr. Biden lacks the political courage to confess to American voters the costs of crippling fossil fuel production before renewables are ready for prime time. So, we instead get this cynical theater in which the president seeks to insulate himself from the consequences of his own agenda. Mr. Biden could unleash America’s energy producers in an effort to reduce costs and promote energy independence. Regardless of Friday’s photo-op, it speaks volumes that he refuses to do so.