One of President Biden’s promises during the 2020 campaign was to change the course of the Trump administration and aggressively address climate change in every sector of our economy. He said his first target is the revitalized American domestic oil and gas exploration sector.
My father was transferred to Texas in 1972. Texas has been my home ever since. It’s easy to learn in Texas that even if your father works in the paper industry like my father, you also work in the oil and gas business. As you get older you get frustrated that the land that landed people on the moon still allows groups like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to control our prices at the pump. I remember sweating in long gasoline pipes in the family station wagon because OPEC was angry with us about global politics.
All of these frustrations have disappeared in the past decade due to American innovators developing directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. The United States was again a net exporter of oil and natural gas. We had a strong economy and stronger national security.
On election day 2020 there were calls for a “Green New Deal” or “to rejoin the Paris Agreement of 2015” or “no drilling in the state”. Biden heard these requests. On his first day in office, he announced a ban on new leases to drill on state. The ban is still waiting for a promised new plan to this day.
I won’t discuss these measures and reasons, but the state drilling ban bothers me.
Why penalize states where Washington, DC controls vast swathes of land? Most states west of the Mississippi fall into this category. These states are dependent on license fees and jobs from drilling on state for their state income.
Our neighbor to the west, New Mexico, is being hit the hardest. An updated December 2020 study by the New Mexico Tax Research Institute found that New Mexico state oil and natural gas revenues were $ 570.9 million for public education, $ 344.1 million for health and human Services and $ 84.4 million in public safety.
Texans love to brag. We say, “It’s not bragging when it’s true.” I find it very difficult to brag about any other state, especially when it comes to oil and gas exploration. But the truth is that New Mexico is way ahead of Texas when it comes to controlling harmful methane emissions. Two years before Biden was elected, the new governor of New Mexico and my former colleague in the US House of Representatives, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, set about tackling methane emissions at the wellhead and ending the flaring / venting. She and her team listened to everyone involved – Big Oil, environmentalists, and Indians – and got them to agree on a plan that recently became official. The deal was remarkable: a 98% reduction in methane emissions by 2026 and an immediate ban on flaring. Lujan Grisham and New Mexico produced the ultimate trifecta for climate change.
You shouldn’t be hurt for spearheading America’s efforts to reduce harmful methane emissions. Let’s hope Biden realizes that instead of hurting New Mexico, he must reward Lujan Grisham’s efforts. Our president should follow Santa Fe instead of Paris.
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