April 9, 2020
The Honorable David Bernhardt Secretary
Department of Interior 149 C St., NW
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Secretary Bernhardt,
We, the undersigned groups, on behalf of our millions of members, urge you to reject calls by lawmakers for measures to relieve the oil and gas industry of essential obligations to American taxpayers that would do little to preserve jobs. These calls risk putting corporate profits above the emergency response required to mitigate the crisis that is the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of the Interior should not heed them; the government’s paramount focus should be the health and safety of communities and workers across the nation.
In a time of crisis, royalty relief for producers of federal fluid minerals would do nothing to aid communities, but rather could come at their expense. This type of bailout could deprive federal and state budgets, already in crisis, of funds they now more than ever cannot spare. These funds will only become more critical in the following months to help prevent and respond to the spread of novel coronavirus, keep our friends, family, and essential frontline workers from dying, and provide economic relief to those who have lost or could lose their jobs and businesses.
There is no doubt that all American workers are in need of relief right now. For those in the oil and gas industry, that relief should not come from the revenue owed to the Treasury. In any event, measures aimed at increasing production levels are the opposite of what is needed now, given that the industry’s economic problems largely stem from a supply glut driven by foreign producers. Encouraging heightened, or even constant, production levels by waiving royalty payments and critical safety and transparency measures would only make the problem worse and put public health at risk.
Royalty relief would do little to preserve jobs or drilling businesses today, and we are concerned that the policy could persist indefinitely. The same is true of lease term extensions and other waivers, which would unfairly advantage industry for years beyond the likely term of this crisis and further endanger public health and safety under a system that already externalizes the costs of oil and gas production and reclamation on American taxpayers and landowners. Nor should your department be holding lease sales, limiting public comment periods, or granting coal producers royalty relief.
In the time of a pandemic, the American people deserve a cogent federal response that is systematically dedicated toward improving the resiliency and health of our communities, lands, and waters. Providing handouts to the oil and gas industry would directly conflict with such goals. We urge the Department of the Interior to direct its limited resources toward solutions that truly tackle the issues presented by the pandemic crisis.
Signed,
| Alaska Wilderness League | Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments |
| Amazon Watch | Arkansas Valley Audubon |
| Arkansas Valley Audubon Society | Black Canyon Audubon Society |
| Blancett Ranches | Boulder County Audubon Society |
| Californians for Western Wilderness | Center for Biological Diversity |
| Center for Civic Policy | Cheyenne High Plains Audubon Society |
| Clean Water Action | Climate Hawks Vote |
| Climate Law & Policy Project | Climate Smart Missoula |
| Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks | Comité Nacional de Lucha Contra el Cambio Climático, CNLCC |
| Conejos Clean Water | Conservation Lands Foundation |
| Conserve Southwest Utah | Dakota Resource Council |
| Denver Audubon | Earth Ethics, Inc. |
| Earthjustice | Earthworks |
| Endangered Species Coalition | Environment America |
| Evergreen Audubon | Fort Collins Audubon Society |
| FracTracker Alliance | Friends of the Earth US |
| Global Witness | Grand Canyon Trust |
| Great Old Broads for Wilderness | Great Salt Lake Audubon |
| Green America | Green Latinos |
| GreenFaith | Greenpeace USA |
| Healthy Gulf (formerly Gulf Restoration Network) | ICCR (Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility) |
| Idaho Conservation League | Idaho Organization of Resource Councils |
| Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance | League of Conservation Voters |
| Midori Law Group, P.C. | Montana Conservation Voters |
| Montana Environmental Information Center | National Audubon Society |
| National Parks Conservation Association | Natural Resources Defense Council |
| New Mexico Horse Council | New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light |
| New Mexico Sportsmen | New York Communities for Change (NYCC) |
| NM Interfaith Power and Light | Northern Plains Resource Council |
| Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project | Oceana |
| Oil Change International | Partnership for Responsible Business |
| Physicians for Social Responsibility | Project On Government Oversight |
| Protect Our Winters | Public Citizen |
| Publish What You Pay-US | Rainforest Action Network |
| Red Desert Audubon Society | Rio Grande Indivisible |
| Rocky Mountain Wild | Sierra Club |
| Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance | Sunrise Movement El Paso |
| Surfrider Foundation | The Climate Reality Project |
| The Mountain Pact | The Wilderness Society |
| Transition US | Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. |
| Weminuche Audubon Society | Western Colorado Alliance |
| Western Environmental Law Center | Western Organization of Resource Councils |
| Western Values Project | WildEarth Guardians |
| Wilderness Workshop | 350 Butte County |
| 350 Colorado | 350 Colorado |
| 350Brooklyn | 350PDX |