Kerry: Expanding Drilling Permits Is ‘Temporary’ Move to Keep ‘the Population Committed to Moving’ to Green

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry commented on the Biden administration granting new drilling leases by stating that he’s fine with additional fossil fuel production if it’s “geared to be able to deal with the need for economic stability in order to be able to make the transitions that we need,” and he views the move “as a temporary measure to try to relieve the price pressure, which is essential to keeping the population committed to moving in these directions,” and that President Biden “knows that many of these leases that have been granted are simply not going to be drilled in.”

Kerry stated, “Is there some additional pumping? Yes, there is. Because demand is up and because, with the situation in Ukraine, the United States is going to do everything it can to help our friends who have made sacrifices by refusing to accept Russian gas and oil and who are now moving even more rapidly to deploy renewables for their own power sectors in their country and transportation in their country. So, I don’t think — as long as the additional efforts to produce gas are, in fact, temporary, as long as they are geared to be able to deal with the need for economic stability in order to be able to make the transitions that we need, and I think that the president knows that many of these leases that have been granted are simply not going to be drilled in. We have an oil industry and gas industry in the United States that owns [a] massive number of leases already that have been permitted and they are not drilling. So, I look at this as a temporary measure to try to relieve the price pressure, which is essential to keeping the population committed to moving in these directions, and I think it’s understandable.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett