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(AP) – On April 30, federal officials cancelled, without explanation, all
upcoming meetings of an advisory panel that had been created by the Trump
administration to make it easier to extract fossil fuels from publicly leased
land and offshore sites.
The Royalty
Policy Committee was established two years ago by former Interior Sec. Ryan
Zinke. Its goal was to eliminate obstacles to drilling and mining faced by oil,
natural gas and coal companies while ensuring a fair return to taxpayers.
The committee’s charter expired
April 21, Interior Department spokeswoman Molly Block said, and upcoming
meetings scheduled in Pittsburgh later this week and Salt Lake City in August
were cancelled.
A January meeting in Phoenix
had been previously postponed.
The committee attracted sharp
criticism from conservationists and others who alleged its membership was
stacked in favor of the energy industry.
They asked a federal judge in
Montana last year to disband the group and strike down its recommendations,
including changes to how energy companies calculate what they owe taxpayers for
pumping natural gas from public sites.
Block declined to give a reason
for why the group’s charter was allowed to expire. That left critics to
speculate that it may have been disbanded because of legal pressures.
U.S. District Judge Donald
Molloy ruled in January that the committee had an obligation to make its
meetings and records open to the public.
“We will continue to work to
stop the Trump administration and its industry allies from making public lands
policy behind closed doors,” said Charisma Troiano from Democracy Forward,
which is representing the Montana-based Western Organization of Resource
Councils in the case before Molloy.
But energy industry
representatives said the committee could yet be revived under Zinke’s
successor, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for oil and
gas companies.
It’s possible Bernhardt simply
has not gotten around to renewing the committee’s charter, said Kathleen
Sgamma, president of the industry-backed Western Energy Alliance and an
alternate member of the committee. Another possibility is that Bernhardt has
decided to focus on recommendations already made, she added.
“It may be better to actually
get some of those priority recommendations done within the next year and a half
rather than identify new issues to tackle,” Sgamma said.
The committee’s members
included industry executives; officials from energy states such as Texas,
Wyoming and North Dakota; tribal representatives; academics and at least one
industry consultant.
