Republicans press Biden admin on its false oil, gas permitting claims

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EXCLUSIVE: A group of Republican senators is pressing the Biden administration to explain its recent downward revision of the number of unused fossil fuel permits, a correction it blamed on a "reporting discrepancy."

The group – led by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and joined by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., John Hoeven, R-N.D., James Lankford, R-Okla., Mike Braun, R-Ind., and James Risch, R-Idaho – penned a letter Wednesday to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Tracy Stone-Manning, demanding more information about the error. The lawmakers noted that the false figure had been used by the White House to justify decreased oil and gas leasing.

"The Biden administration has been gas-lighting our domestic energy producers for the past two years. Now that the truth has come to light, Biden officials are quietly walking back their false statements hoping no one will take notice," Mullin told Fox News Digital.

"I’m leading my Senate colleagues in demanding answers on BLM’s inaccurate reporting that led to these false claims. BLM should do all it can to ensure the energy industry and the American public this will not happen again," the Oklahoma lawmaker continued. "To make matters worse, this administration used its faulty statistics to justify its refusal to comply with timely onshore and offshore federal oil and gas lease sales."

FLASHBACK: BIDEN, WHITE HOUSE CITED INACCURATE ‘9,000 UNUSED PERMITS’ FIGURE MORE THAN 20 TIMES

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., is pictured in the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 15, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

In late February, the BLM quietly corrected the current number of approved but unused applications for permits to drill from about 9,000 down to less than 6,700. When asked about the change, which wasn't accompanied by a formal announcement or press release, a BLM spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time that the figure was updated "to account for a reporting discrepancy resulting from a transition to a new database in mid-2020."

A Biden administration official then defended the correction, saying oil companies still have thousands of permits to drill on and have reported record profits over the last year.

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However, President Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, former press secretary Jen Psaki, spokesperson John Kirby and other White House officials repeatedly cited the figure over the last 12 months amid the global energy crisis and criticism over the administration's approach to federal oil and gas leasing.

"One thing I want to say about the oil companies: They talk about how we have — they have 9,000 permits to drill," Biden remarked in June. "They’re not drilling. Why aren’t they drilling?"

"There are over 9,000 onshore drilling permits that are sitting unused," Granholm said during a speech in March 2022. "We all know that’s the same old D.C. BS."

President Biden referenced the inaccurate 9,000-permit figure multiple times last year to defend his record on fossil fuel drilling. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Overall, the administration pointed to the inaccurate figure at least 20 times last year, a Fox News Digital review concluded.

"Meanwhile, skyrocketing energy and inflation costs are crippling hard-working Americans and their families. Actions speak louder than words," said Mullin. "Our producers can’t do their jobs when they face roadblocks from this administration at every turn." 

"Global energy demands are increasing, and someone must rise to meet them. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be us."

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Mullin's letter also highlighted that many of the permits that have been awarded to oil and gas companies are tied up in legal battles, require additional permitting or need additional leases to be fully developed. The letter stated that the BLM is fully aware of such leasing dynamics.

And the letter concluded by asking a series of pointed questions about how the discrepancy occurred and how it was corrected. It also questioned why permit figures haven't been reported for October and November, a timeframe coinciding with the 2022 midterm election.

A worker walks past pump jacks operating at the Kern River Oil Field in Bakersfield, California. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

"This administration has slowed new leasing to the lowest point since World War II," the GOP lawmakers wrote. "It has been 264 days since the Department of the Interior allowed the five-year offshore leasing program to expire without a new finalized program in place, and the administration held just one round of quarterly lease sales in 2022 after not holding any in 2021, as required by law."

"We look forward to your answers to these questions. The timely leasing of federal minerals as required by law is a core part of the BLM’s function, as is correctly communicating the statistics regarding your progress on that front to the American people."

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Stone-Manning has received widespread criticism from Republicans over her actions since taking office and her environmental activism stretching back decades. The BLM director was involved in an operation to spike trees, a method of hammering nails into trees to physically harm loggers, in Idaho in the late 1980s.

In July 2021, a retired FBI agent confirmed he had investigated Stone-Manning's role in the eco-terrorism plot at the time. He added that she was going to be indicted until her lawyer negotiated immunity. Stone-Manning, though, told Congress in ethics filings that she wasn't aware of the operation and that she had never been criminally investigated.

The BLM didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.