White House bans senior officials from most global conferences promoting fossil fuels: report

The White House has barred senior administration officials from attending international conferences that promote fossil fuel production.

The National Security Council prohibits US officials from pursuing any “carbon-intensive engagements” for oil, natural gas and coal, according to a Sept. 15 memo from Energy Department Deputy Secretary David Turk first reported by Fox News.

The officials must ask special permission for exceptions related to supporting national security or to protect “energy access” in some regions.

“This guidance sets out a presumption that agencies and departments will pursue international energy engagement that advances clean energy projects,” Turk was quoted as saying in the memo.

“It also outlines a process for seeking limited exceptions to pursue carbon-intensive engagements on a justified geostrategic imperative or energy-for-development/energy access basis.”

“The guidance rules out any U.S. Government ‘engagement related to unabated or partially abated coal generation,’” Turk also wrote of the guidance, which initially became effective in November 2021.

“Carbon-intensive international energy engagements are those ‘directly related and dedicated to the production, transportation, or consumption of carbon-intensive fuels that would lead to additional greenhouse gas emissions.’”

Reps for the Energy Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Daniel Turner, the founder and executive director of Power the Future, which advocates against “radical environmental” changes to US energy policy, said in a statement that the “war on American fossil fuels is making us poorer, weaker and more reliant on China and OPEC for our energy.”

“The Biden administration cannot continue to treat the fossil fuels industry as an enemy,” Turner said. “Millions of people are employed in this industry which powers our entire nation, our military, our national security, and allows Joe Biden to jet off every weekend to his beach house.”

The Biden administration has pushed for renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, providing generous tax credits to wind and solar power initiatives and setting production standards to reduce carbon emissions.

President Biden issued an executive order in August 2021 mandating 50% of new cars produced to be “zero emission” by 2030, along with fuel efficiency standards.

Another initiative unveiled at the G20 summit last month in New Delhi, India, would take $1 billion from US taxpayers to build out railroad and green infrastructure abroad.

“From the day I came to office, we’ve led with a bold climate agenda,” Biden, 80, told the United Nations in his address to the body’s General Assembly last month.

“We rejoined the Paris Agreement, convened major climate summits, helped deliver critical agreements on COP26. And we helped get two-thirds of the world GDP on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

Meanwhile, Biden administration officials have avoided fossil fuel summits such as the World Gas Conference and declined to invite oil and gas industry leaders to their own White House Methane Summit in July.

The administration has also downplayed greenhouse emissions produced by White House climate envoy John Kerry and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — both of whom have flown several times on private jets.