Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
In the late 1920s, with the country awash in crude and prices
plummeting, President Hoover ordered the Interior Department to cease
all oil leasing.
The decision -- aimed at conserving the government's mineral bounty
for boom times -- was legal, according to a 1931 Supreme Court ruling
that found Interior is under no obligation to lease the federal estate.
That ruling resonates today as environmental groups and liberal
politicians call on the Obama administration to again stop the sale of
federally owned oil, gas and coal.
And this time, they want the ban to be permanent.
The Keep It in the Ground movement -- led by 350.org, the Center for
Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians -- has rekindled a
vigorous legal debate over whether the government is obligated to sell
publicly owned minerals whose burning could intensify global warming.
The question has split legal experts and vexed the Obama administration's top lawyers.
To be sure, Interior officials have made no indication that they are
prepared to terminate the agency's nearly century-old leasing program.
Secretary Sally Jewell has said fossil fuel leasing cannot be cut off
overnight if people want to continue driving cars and living in
comfortable homes.
The Bureau of Land Management sold more than 1,000 oil and gas
leases last year covering more than 1 million acres, and the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management is floating a controversial proposal to open the
Atlantic Ocean to leasing and drilling for the first time in decades.
Yet President Obama has also acknowledged warnings by scientists
that some fossil fuels -- roughly 80 percent of the world's coal -- must
be kept in the ground to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Activists say Obama could burnish his climate legacy by ending, or
at least greatly phasing out, the sale of new fossil fuel leases.
At the center of the debate is the Mineral Leasing Act, which
Congress passed in 1920 to guide the orderly development of federally
owned minerals. Climate activists say that despite many amendments, the
law still offers clear authority for Interior to lease or not lease its
minerals.
MLA says lands "known or believed to contain oil or gas deposits may be leased by the secretary."
"'May' means 'may,'" said John Leshy, who served as Interior's top
attorney under the Clinton administration and now teaches at the
University of California's Hastings College of the Law. Lands are
"available if the secretary makes them available."
The Supreme Court's ruling on the issue was unambiguous, Leshy said.
Interior can ban fossil fuel leasing everywhere except for lands with
unique statutes such as the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
(NPR-A).
"A blanket 'no' is politically risky because you invite
congressional interference," he said. "But in terms of the legal
authority, there's no question."