From PolitiFact Texas:
Texas congressman overestimates job losses associated with new drilling ban
President Joe Biden approved his promise to take action to curb US emissions when he issued an executive order stopping new oil and gas leases on federal lands and water.
The order, signed on Wednesday, orders the Department of Home Affairs to suspend leasing of leases to oil and gas companies pending a review of the climate impact of the department’s leasing and admissions practices. About 22% of U.S. oil production is dependent on federal states and waters.
U.S. Representative Kevin Brady, R-Texas, in anticipation of Biden’s move, expressed his dismay at how a moratorium on hiring would affect jobs in the Texas oil and gas sector.
“Kill more Texas jobs,” Brady said in a Jan. 22 tweet. ‘After the #KeeystoneXL pipeline was killed, #Biden stopped new oil / gas leasing on lined land / water. If it is permanent, it will lose 120,000 TX jobs. 120,000 MORE unemployed. Pssst … should not you create jobs? ‘
The move by Biden will have an exorbitant effect on states with large parts of federal lands used for oil and gas activities. New Mexico, for example, has 24 million acres of federal land, or about 32% of the state’s total land mass; Wyoming owns 29 million acres in federal ownership, or about 47% of the state.
Texas, on the other hand, has very little state-owned land – 3 million acres, or 2% of the state. Nearly half of it is run by the U.S. National Park Service. As of 2019, approximately 185,000 acres were leased for oil and gas production in Texas.
Although most of the oil and gas industry in Texas is land-based, a portion of the industry is actively drilling into federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Jan. 22, there were 16 foreign craft in the Gulf compared to 175 on Texas soil, according to Baker Hughes’ counter. (In February last year, before the coronavirus pandemic hit the world oil industry hard, about 20 installations were deployed in the Gulf, compared to about 400 ashore in Texas.)
With such a small fraction of the state industry likely to be affected by Biden’s commission, is Brady correct when he says that 120,000 jobs in Texas are at stake? …
Read the full story and see how Brady’s claim on PolitiFact Texas was judged. Listen to PolitiFact’s Brandon Mulder interview with Texas Standard in the audio player above.