Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current Argus l February 23, 2021

Millions of acres of federal public land were leased to the oil and gas industry but continue to sit unused.

Recent data from the Center for Western Priorities showed that while about 20.9 million acres were leased to industry, about 9.9 million or 47 percent were idle.

The report came as President Joe Biden enacted an indefinite halt on new federal oil and gas leases, bringing outcry from the industry that the move could disrupt fossil fuel development.

In enacting the halt, the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) argued the industry had “stockpiled” millions of acres of land that would not be impacted by the halt on new leasing and was sitting on 7,700 approved but unused permits to drill.

Experts and regulators contended fossil fuel companies had enough land already leased to continue operations unencumbered for years.

But New Mexico could feel the impacts the soonest, it had the second-most leased acreage but the lowest percentage of unused land.

About 4.3 million acres of New Mexico’s public land was leased to the industry, the report read, while 442,599 acres or just 10 percent sat idle.

Wyoming had the most acreage leased at about 8.7 million acres with 4.8 million or 56 percent idle, the study showed.

Arizona and Oregon had 100 percent of leased land idle, Nevada was 97 percent unused, but those three states all had less than a million acres leased in the first place, per the study.

New Mexico was followed in leased land by Utah with 2.7 million acres and 60 percent unused and Colorado with 2.4 million acres and 39 percent unused – the lowest after New Mexico.

Ryan Flynn, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA) said New Mexico would be the hardest-hit by the leasing ban as it relied heavily on not just extraction but operations on federal land.

He said local communities and regions of the state that see heavy production, such as in the Permian Basin of the southeast and the San Juan Basin in the northwest were especially imperiled by a disruption of federal oil and gas development.

“We share the new administration’s commitment to reducing emissions and combating climate change, but we do not make progress by sacrificing New Mexico communities like Carlsbad, Farmington, or Hobbs,” Flynn said.

“A federal leasing moratorium is effectively a blockade around New Mexico’s economy, impacting our state more than any other in the country.”

A federal leasing ban would risk 47 percent of New Mexico’s oil production, per data from NMOGA, and lead to a46 percent decrease in natural gas production.

That would translate to 62,000 jobs lost, NMOGA reported, and risk $1.1 billion in state revenue.

Flynn argued the pause could also make the U.S. more dependent on foreign sources of energy which often entail less-stringent environmental oversight.

“The message to thousands of New Mexico children, teachers, and first responders who rely on our oil and natural gas industry for basic support is absolutely clear: New Mexicans lose and foreign imports win,” he said.

“A moratorium all but guarantees that unemployment will rise, state revenue will fall, and our economy will come to halt.”

NMOGA spokesman Robert McEntyre countered that the Center's data proved New Mexico producers were making the most of the land they leased.

He said New Mexico has the most to lose in a leasing ban than any other in the U.S.

"As the report notes, a small percentage of leases in New Mexico are sitting idle, proving that producers here are not stalling production on federal lands and are developing these resources to the benefit of all New Mexicans," he said.

Jesse Prentice-Dunn, policy director at the Center for Western Priorities said the federal government must reform its energy policy and land leasing activities and that a pause on new leases would allow the Biden administration to evaluate its policies for the future.

During the halt, the Center recommended in the report that the federal government enact numerous reforms such as increasing public participation in identifying lands suitable for oil and gas development, not leasing lands to the industry with little extraction potential and raising the minimum bid per acre from $2 to at least $10 per acre.

Annual rental rates should also be doubled, the Center argued, from $1.50 per acre to $3.

“The oil and gas industry has spent decades taking advantage of a rigged system and stockpiling leases on American public lands,” Prentice-Dunn said. “At this point, the industry isn’t even using almost half of the acreage they have leased—an area larger than Maryland and Delaware combined.”

Industry attempts to characterize the leasing ban as problematic for national security, public education or the economy, Prentice-Dunn said, were unfounded and meant to protect the bottom lines of energy companies.

“The oil and gas industry is well aware that the current leasing system is tilted in their favor, and they’ve spent millions on lawyers and lobbyists to keep it that way,” Prentice-Dunn said.

“As this analysis shows, their recent campaign against President Biden’s commonsense leasing pause is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy to prevent a broken system from being fixed.”