Liam Denning, Columnist

Biden Plays Long Game With Short-Term Fracking Freeze

Creating delay and doubt could discourage investment in oil and gas.

January 26, 2021 at 12:00 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Workers with S&J Contractors lay a pipeline in Lea County, New Mexico.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

There are two basic routes to an energy transition: encouraging new forms and discouraging old ones. President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, centered on stimulus spending, will focus on the former. His executive agenda has moved swiftly on the latter already. But in targeting the oil and gas business, Biden’s eyes appear fixed on the horizon.

Exploration and production stocks took fright at Biden’s 60-day freeze of new federal leases and permits for drilling. The fear is that this tees up a bigger move as soon as this week: a “fracking ban,” or outright end to new leasing and permitting for federal areas, which account for about a quarter of current U.S. oil production and roughly a tenth of its natural gas.