For public lands, oil and gas pause provides ‘A Better Deal’

MCV Education Fund launches new campaign highlighting benefits of leasing pause

(BOZEMAN, Mont.) – The Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund today launched a new multimedia campaign to highlight the benefits to taxpayers and public lands from President Joe Biden’s recent moratorium on new oil and gas leasing across the West.

The campaign, called “A Better Deal,” is designed to educate all Montanans about the facts of oil and gas development in the Big Sky State. The campaign includes a brief video, available online HERE.

“Montana’s public lands are the envy of the nation–an engine that drives a $7.1 billion recreation economy, creating more than 71,000 good jobs here,” the video states. “Now a new pause on oil and gas development could open up more lands for the public and give us taxpayers a better return.”

Biden on January 27 signed an executive order temporarily pausing all new oil and gas leasing on federally owned public lands. The order does not affect existing oil and gas leases, which means it does not affect funding for popular initiatives like the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which relies on existing offshore oil leases.

According to the nonpartisan organization Rocky Mountain Wild, about two-thirds of all publicly owned land in Montana leased to developers is currently undeveloped. In 2020, only 17,000 acres of leases were sold–down from more than 86,000 acres sold in 2019.

“Because of lack of demand, speculative companies are able to lock up our public lands for absurdly low prices,” the MCV Education Fund’s video says. “We lose our access, and taxpayers are cheated out of millions.”

“This pause on oil and gas development is an important opportunity to better understand how energy companies have been taking advantage of public landowners,” said Whitney Tawney, the Executive Director of the MCV Education Fund. “Oil and gas companies have been riding the gravy train, hoping we wouldn’t notice. But the gig is up and it’s time for a better deal.”

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Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund is a non-profit, non-partisan organization engaging all Montanans and their communities by empowering them to protect our clean air, clean water, public lands and voting rights through education, mobilization and the power of grassroots advocacy. The MCV Education Fund programs educate the public about critical environmental and public lands issues; promote greater nonpartisan citizen involvement in the democratic process; and provide strategic tools to conservation organizations to be more effective.