Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has joined the AGs of Texas and Mississippi in asking the Trump administration to reverse policies of the former president they say harm the oil and gas industry.
In a February 21 letter to President Donald J. Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Murrill says the trio of Republican AGs look forward to working to help reverse “the harmful policies of the Biden administration that threaten our state’s economy and jeopardizing our shared goal of restoring the country to a position of ‘Energy Dominance’ that President Trump achieved in his first term and instituting an American Energy Golden Age.”
Joining the letter written by Murrill are Texas AG Ken Paxton and Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch.
“Our states have long spearheaded the country’s development of offshore oil and gas resources, and the offshore oil and gas industry is a leading employer in our States and along the Gulf Coast,” Murrill wrote. “In pursuing one of the ‘most ambitious climate agendas in history,’ the Biden administration took every opportunity to impose unnecessary burdens on the continued development of home-grown American energy.
“But you can, you should, and you are reversing the Biden administration’s calculated and systematic effort to destroy this country’s offshore oil and gas industry.”
The AGs urged Trump’s administration to suspend and revoke Biden’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s rule that targeted oil and gas production in the outer continental shelf.
In a press release, Murrill said the policies “were a systematic effort to destroy this country’s oil and gas industry.”
“The Biden administration wanted to destroy the offshore industry through bureaucratic fiat, and the rule was an unnecessary proxy designed to hurt domestic oil and gas activity in federal waters,” Murrill said in her press release. “To achieve American Energy Dominance, we must repudiate the destructive and ill-informed policies of the Biden administration, starting with the immediate suspension and revocation of the rule.”
In the letter, the three AGs said the Biden administration tried to hide the true purpose of the rule.
“The rule was one damaging effort the Biden administration implemented in its campaign to destroy the offshore industry through bureaucratic fiat,” they wrote. “The Biden administration stated that the rule was designed to protect the American taxpayer from having to maintain and decommission orphan wells on the Outer Continental Shelf. But that was pretext for the rule’s true aim: the destruction of independent oil and gas production in the Gulf of (Mexico).”
The AGs say the rule is ripe for review and rescission.
“It requires, absent extraordinary circumstances, all current lessees and operators of offshore oil and gas properties to post bonds or other security in the amount of the estimated decommissioning liability for their offshore properties,” they wrote. “According to the Biden administration, the rule carries a total compliance cost of $8.5 billion, costing the industry nearly $600 million per year, which will be absorbed primarily by small businesses doing business in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast.
“The rule requires the industry to post an additional $9 billion worth of bonds into a surety market that currently provides only approximately $3 billion in bonds. The surety market will not support the issuance of the required bonds and, without the issuance of the new bonds to the government, the industry will be forced to shut down.
“Indeed, many small businesses will simply be forced out of business, thereby forever stranding domestic resources desperately needed in the energy starved global world in which we now live.”
They say the rule is a classic example of a “solution in search of a problem.”
“Federal law has long imposed joint and several liability on all current and former owners of offshore oil and gas properties for decommissioning liability even after assignments of the properties are made, thereby providing the government with decades worth of former owners available to decommission offshore wells and platforms should the current owner fail to do so,” the AGs wrote. “In nearly all cases, a large multi-national oil company stands in the chain of title. This reliance on predecessors to comply with their continuing obligation to decommission offshore wells and platforms has worked for decades. …
“In short, the current joint-and-several liability system has proven itself effective. Accordingly, the rule is completely unnecessary to achieve the stated goal of protecting the American taxpayer. The rule is such a danger that our states sued the Biden administration over the rule, seeking a stay of the implementation of the rule and a revocation of the rule due to the rule’s many legal deficiencies.
“The Trump administration can and should abandon the Biden administration’s misguided defense of the rule, while working with the states to end the rule altogether.”
The three AGs said they stand by “ready and willing to assist.”
“Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and the offshore oil and gas industry stand ready to support your laudable efforts to restore American Energy Dominance,” they wrote. “To achieve that goal, we must repudiate the destructive and ill-informed policies of the Biden administration, starting with the immediate suspension and revocation of the rule.”