The state of North Dakota has sued the Biden government for suspending new state and waterway oil and gas leases, claiming that doing so has cost the state nearly $ 5 billion in lost revenue and more than half a billion barrels of oil in the ground will hold.
President Biden ordered the suspension days after he took office as part of his climate change agenda – but the move was blocked in federal court in June so states can proceed with new leases.
North Dakota joins 14 other states with Republican attorneys general who have filed lawsuits over the moratorium on new leases.
The Interior Ministry, the federal agency that oversees oil and gas leases, declined to comment.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the North Dakota County, the state called the moratorium illegal and said the Home Office had exceeded its powers to suspend the sale of leases.
It also alleged that the suspension of two North Dakota leases, originally scheduled for March and June, has already cost the state tens of millions in lost revenue.
North Dakota is the second largest producer of oil and gas in the United States, and more than half of the state government’s revenue comes from oil and gas taxes.
“This significant damage to North Dakota will increase rapidly,” the lawsuit said, as the “illegal federal government moratorium may continue”.
If the moratorium continues next year, the lawsuit said, leases on nearly 150,000 acres of North Dakota would be blocked, preventing the construction of more than 1,000 oil and gas wells and the production of 555 million barrels of oil. The estimated total loss of revenue is $ 4.77 billion.
“I took these steps to protect the North Dakota economy, the jobs of our hardworking citizens, and North Dakota’s right to control its own natural resources,” said Wayne Stenehjem, the North Dakota attorney general, in a Explanation.
