To drill or not to drill on federal land?

With a federal judge recently invalidating leases to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, now is a great time for shippers and carriers to shift focus toward network and route efficiency in order to reduce the amount of empty miles and unnecessary fuel usage, according to Danny Gomez, managing director of financial and emerging markets at FreightWaves.

“The hope is that we don’t have to drill on federal lands — that we can utilize and tap into the resources that we have and use the investment dollars that we can to further invest into more sustainable fuels,” Gomez said.

Gomez joined environmental groups in applauding a district court judge’s order earlier this year that the Biden administration must analyze the environmental impacts of oil and gas leasing across approximately 4 million acres of federal land in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming before new drilling permits can be issued. 

Kyle Tisdel, senior attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a recent Reuters article that the judge’s order is a “fundamental opportunity for the Biden administration to align federal action with this climate reality and to keep its promise to present and future generations.”

Gomez hopes that moving forward drilling decisions can be made “in a more holistic way.”

“As a nation, we are becoming more awake to what is real and what we are being told and then challenging people who are delivering those narratives to explain themselves. These groups coming in and halting the drilling on federal lands is an example of how much we have changed,” Gomez said. “The hope is that we don’t have to drill on federal lands — that we can utilize and tap into the resources that we have and use the investment dollars that we can to further invest into more sustainable fuels.”