Within a single week, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator E. Scott Pruitt held a 2-day listening session with state and local government officials, oil and gas producers, and other stakeholders in Denver. US Sec. of the Interior Ryan Zinke, meanwhile, postponed two onshore oil and gas lease sales in response to expressions of concern from various individuals and groups.
Is it possible the top officials of the two federal entities that probably have the greatest impact on the US oil and gas industry actually are trying to make good on their promises to work more closely with governments, companies, and people in the areas where their federal policies have the biggest direct effects?
Both said they intended to do exactly that when they were nominees responding to questions during confirmation hearings before separate US Senate committees. Each probably is discovering that creating genuine cooperative federalism is harder than it sounds.
Pruitt likely had a good idea of what he was taking on because he sued EPA a number of times, as Oklahoma’s attorney general, when he concluded that the national agency went too far.
“In just 1 year, we have made tremendous progress implementing President Trump’s agenda by refocusing the agency to its core mission, restoring power to the states through cooperative federalism, and adhering to the rule of law,” he said on Mar. 5. “The American people can now trust that states and stakeholders will be treated as partners, and regulations will provide clarity, not confusion.”
States and stakeholders can be excused if they feel they’ve heard it all before. As the old joke goes, the second-least believable phrase in the English language is “I’m from the federal government, and I’m here to help you.”
Unfunded mandates
Several state governments already work closely with EPA because they wind up having to implement programs Congress orders the agency to develop without budgeting the necessary money to complete the job. These are the unfunded mandates some federal lawmakers can’t seem to resist.
Zinke’s Interior Department has been able to roll back master leasing programs and other onerous requirements the Obama administration imposed.
The secretary also followed the example of Dirk Kempthorne, one of his predecessors, and began to develop a new Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing program a few years early after the Obama administration produced one that locked up all but the western and central Gulf of Mexico and a portion of the eastern gulf.
Zinke’s proposed draft offered more than 90% of the OCS. Several coastal states’ governors expressed alarm, and the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management scheduled public hearings. Whether any now-closed areas actually will be opened is questionable.
