Energy & Environment — U.S.-Saudi oil feud escalates

Rachel Frazin
·5 min read

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia continue a war of words, and a new report shows a decline in wildlife populations. Meanwhile, not all Native American stakeholders are pleased with the Biden administration’s first national monument designation.

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Relations with Saudis sour as OPEC+ fight amplifies

Tensions over Saudi Arabia’s decision with OPEC+ to cut oil production reached new heights on Thursday when the White House made the unprecedented move to publicly dispute the Kingdom’s defense of the choice, marking a shift in long-standing relations between the two countries.

The Saudi foreign ministry said in a lengthy statement that the decision was based on economic considerations and that all members of OPEC+, a group of oil producing nations, unanimously agreed to it. But Biden administration officials, who saw the move as benefiting the Kremlin, sharply pushed back.

  • “The bottom line is we don’t want to see any nation helping Russia prosecute this war, whether that’s moral support, military support, or economic support, and the decision that OPEC+ came out with this week was certainly economic support. And I would argue it also fell into the category of moral and military support,” said John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council. 

  • He accused the Saudis of trying to “spin or deflect” and, giving insight into some private conversations, said that the Saudis conveyed to U.S. officials in recent weeks that they wanted to reduce oil production, and they knew it would increase Russian revenues.

The administration had presented Saudi Arabia with an analysis to argue there was no market basis tocut production targets, Kirby said.

President Biden also had a clear message on Thursday to the Saudis: “We’re about to talk to you.”

“Stay tuned,” he told reporters when asked what he will say to Saudi leaders.

The administration has also brought other countries into the dispute, albeit without naming names.

Kirby said other OPEC+ nations have communicated to the U.S. privately that they disagree with the Saudi decision “but felt coerced to support” it. He said those OPEC+ members that expressed their concerns to the U.S. can speak for themselves but that “there was more than one OPEC member” that did.

  • Experts said the outward criticism of the Saudis by a U.S. presidential administration was unprecedented. 

  • “The fact that they went public with it, it’s quite a statement in and by itself,” said Hafed Al Ghwell, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “I think this public roil is quite significant. And it’s really going to affect the relationship in general.”

Read more here, from The Hill’s Alex Gangitano.

Many wildlife populations see decline since 1970

Populations of thousands of animal species from around the world have declined by an average of 69 percent since 1970, according to a new report.

Researchers studied nearly 32,000 populations of 5,230 species from around the globe and found that on average, those populations declined by 69 percent between 1970 and 2018.

The report does not suggest that extinction rates of individual species are rising, but researchers say the finding is significant because it provides a “snapshot” of overall changes to ecosystems and their health.

“Essentially, declines in abundance are early warning indicators of overall ecosystem health,” the report said.

The report, from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, specifically looked at mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish.

It said that the reasons for the declines include habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change and diseases.

Read more about the research here.

Tribes divided after national monument declaration

The Ute Native American tribe, whose ancestral lands formed the newly designated Camp Hale National Monument, had mixed reactions to the Biden administration’s announcement of the designation this week.

In a statement, the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee said the administration “moved forward with a monument on our homelands without including us. They talk about tribal consultation, but their actions do not match their words. We cannot support a monument on our homelands that does not include the tribe.”

The tribe went on to decry the designation as an “unlawful act of genocide.”

The committee said it learned of the designation only days before President Biden made it official, saying

“Instead of fully engaging the Ute Indian Tribe and its Uncompahgre Band in designating the Monument, the White House rushed forward with its own priorities,” it said.

However, not all Ute bands were critical of the designation. Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council Chairman Melvin Baker attended the designation ceremony and told The Colorado Sun the designation was a “game-changer.”

“Others can learn that we can work together, whether it’s states, tribes, governments working together to make this happen on behalf of the earth that we live on and Mother Earth that we protect,” he said. “I think it will be a big help moving forward.”

Read more about the disagreement here.

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