As the Trump administration seeks to boost fossil fuels, a mapping agency at the Interior Department is preparing a comprehensive estimate of oil and gas resources on public lands for the first time.
The initiative would potentially give the energy industry new insight into what untapped oil and gas resources could be explored throughout 700 million subsurface acres of federal lands.
For a half-century, the U.S. Geological Survey has regularly assessed the amount of oil and gas that is buried underground across the country’s oil-producing basins. In past years, assessments of “priority geologic provinces” have not specified which portions of recoverable resources are on privately owned or public land, according to Alicia Lindauer, program coordinator for the Energy Resources Program at USGS.
“In response to the continuing national need and our responsibility to provide actionable data on energy resources to Secretary Burgum and land management offices within the Department of the Interior, the USGS is currently compiling estimates of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources under federal lands of the onshore United States,” Lindauer said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News.
