As climate fight shifts to oil, Biden faces a formidable foe

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — President Joe Biden’s bid to tackle climate change is running straight through the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry -- a much bigger, more influential foe than Democrats faced when they took on the coal industry during the Obama years.

Coal dominated U.S. power generation for decades, with the bulk of that fuel coming from the massive strip mines of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — a market that collapsed in recent years as utilities switched to natural gas.

Fast forward to 2021 — and oil and gas have eclipsed coal to become the biggest source of greenhouse emissions from public lands and waters, federal production data indicates. That’s made government fuel sales an irresistible target for Democrats as they try to rein in climate change.

Biden’s election has put big oil companies on the defensive after largely having their way in Washington under President Donald Trump. But in taking on petroleum companies with a moratorium on oil and gas lease sales, Biden picked a foe that spent lavishly over decades to secure allegiance from Republican lawmakers.

The industry is also deeply enmeshed in local economies -- from Alaska and the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountain drilling hub of Casper, Wyoming -- posing a challenge to the Democrat as he tries to navigate between strong action on the climate and recovering from the pandemic's financial devastation.

“You’re not hurting the big guys that are doing all the development. You’re hurting these little guys that are dreaming up where no one else thought there was any oil and gas,” said Steve Degenfelder, land manager for family-owned Kirkwood Oil & Gas in Casper, a community of about 60,000 known as The Oil City.

Trump’s final months in office saw a huge spike in new drilling permits after his administration sped up...