‘Walking the Tightrope’ Interior Oil Leasing Plans Irk All Sides

The Biden administration’s new onshore oil and gas leasing strategy is expected to concentrate new drilling in existing oil fields even as it gives companies reasons to flee federal land—a situation that dismays both environmentalists and industry.

The policies, known as instruction memorandums to agency staff, were issued last week by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management partly as a response to the Inflation Reduction Act climate and tax law, which makes renewable energy permitting contingent on further oil and gas leasing.

The land bureau on Nov. 28 also proposed a new rule aiming to slash methane emissions ...