The Trump Administration’s blustery “energy dominance” agenda hit a wall yesterday as a sale of nearly 300,000 acres of public lands in Nevada to the oil and gas industry failed to receive a single bid.
In other words, while the Administration attempted to sell public lands for fracking, nobody from industry even bothered to show up. It just wasn’t worth it.
All told, 144 parcels of public lands received 0 bids with not a single dollar recovered. See for yourself the results:
It’s another stark example of how this Administration’s interest isn’t in advancing energy development, it’s about trying to use taxpayer dollars to put as many acres of our public lands into the hands of the oil and gas industry.
Of course, what Trump refuses to acknowledge is that industry doesn’t even want to buy.
While Ryan Zinke, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, gloated last week that, “President Trump’s commitment to ‘American Energy Dominance’ is working,” it’s clear this boasting is misplaced.
And it’s not just in Nevada where industry isn’t showing up. In Utah, industry bid on just 69 out of 109 parcels yesterday. And last week in Arizona, only 2 out of 3 parcels offered for sale received bids.
And while the Interior Department trumpeted the success of a public lands sale in southeast New Mexico last week, the reality is this sale reflected the boom currently unfolding in the Permian Basin and wasn’t because of any “energy dominance” agenda.
We’ve written about how crazy it is that this Administration would even attempt to sell public lands in Nevada for fracking. It’s clearer than ever that its attempts are doing nothing except cost taxpayers money.
With the Trump Administration trying to auction off nearly 4 million acres of public lands this year alone, it’s obvious that the agenda of “energy dominance” is nothing but a scam on the American public.
