The White House on Friday advanced its plan to roll back a Biden administration rule that had overhauled oil and gas leasing on public lands and imposed stricter requirements on oil companies.
The changes made under President Joe Biden significantly increased bonding requirements for oil wells — the first major updates to federal lands leasing rules that had been undertaken in decades.
The proposed rollback is one of many changes the Trump administration has proposed or undertaken to ease regulations for oil and mining companies, which industry advocates said had become onerous. But environmentalists and many Democrats contend the changes proposed by the Bureau of Land Management will make it easier for companies to skirt cleanup obligations and leave behind dangerous equipment for taxpayers to pay to remove.
Called the Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process, the 2024 BLM rule increased bonding requirements for new oil and gas leases from $10,000 to a minimum of $150,000. Statewide bonds — also called blanket bonds — were increased from $25,000 to a minimum of $500,000.
