The Guardian: Big Oil, Lobbyists & New Mexico’s Permian Basin
(Here is an excerpt from an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian about the oil industry in New Mexico and the reaction of local authorities to the Biden administration’s decision to pause oil gas drilling leases on federal lands).
How big oil keeps a grip on New Mexico – with the help of a major lobbyist
When Joe Biden paused oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands earlier this year, the alarm bells rang in southeastern New Mexico.
Officials in Eddy county – which, along with neighboring Lea county, holds New Mexico’s share of the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin – immediately worried about potential economic fallout.
“This news is exceptionally disappointing,” county manager Allen Davis wrote in an email to colleagues. “The message couldn’t be more clear: south-east New Mexico is not a business friendly for an industry that has sustained the state of New Mexico finances for decades [sic].”
Kayley Shoup, a Carlsbad-based organizer with the environmental group Citizens Caring for the Future, said local leaders are pushing a false narrative.
It “keeps our local community from having a seat at the table when it comes to this long economic transition that our country is and will be undergoing,” Shoup said.
Situated in the Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico’s staunchly Republican southeast region, Eddy county is a rural, industrial area, where the top employers are in the mining and oil and gas industries. And county leaders appeared to be depending on their influential allies, including the international lobbying firm FTI Consulting, to keep it that way.