Nov 2, 2021 1:12 PM EDT

Biden administration acknowledges impacts of oil and gas sales on public land, but hasn’t stopped them

FILE PHOTO: Pump jacks operate in front of a drilling rig in an oil field in Midland

Pump jacks operate in front of a drilling rig in an oil field in Midland, Texas. Photo by Nick Oxford/Reuters

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration is planning to sell oil and gas leases on huge tracts of public land in the U.S. West, despite the Interior Department’s conclusion that doing so could cost society billions of dollars in climate change impacts.

Administration officials announced last week that government regulators for the first time will analyze greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels extracted from government-owned lands across the U.S.

Burning those fuels accounts for about 20% of energy-related U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for climate activists who want to shut them down, and Biden campaigned on pledges to end new drilling on public land.

Yet officials with the administration’s Bureau of Land Management said there’s little they can do to prevent the cumulative climate change impacts from burning the fuels, because they can’t discern the significance of emissions from government-owned fuel reserves versus other sources. The determination applies to lease sales planned early next year in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and other states.