The Claim

Reversed Biden-era drilling restrictions, approving nearly 6,000 applications for permits to drill for oil and gas on federal and Native American land — a 55% increase from the same time period in 2024-2025.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) the Trump administration reversed Biden-era drilling restrictions, and (2) it approved nearly 6,000 Applications for Permits to Drill (APDs) on federal and Native American land, representing a 55% increase over the same period under Biden.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That Biden’s restrictions were meaningfully suppressing drilling on federal lands. That more permits means more drilling and more energy production. That this permitting surge translates into lower energy prices and greater energy independence. The framing implies a direct causal chain: restrictions removed, permits surged, America became energy dominant.

What is conspicuously absent?

The gap between permits approved and permits actually used for drilling. The fact that the Biden administration itself approved more drilling permits in its first year than Trump’s first term did in the same period. The role of oil prices — not permitting policy — as the primary driver of drilling investment decisions. The fact that the U.S. rig count has been declining even as permit approvals surged, and that EIA forecasts a slight production decline in 2026. The fact that thousands of previously approved permits already sit unused because companies choose not to drill at current prices.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The BLM approved 6,027 APDs between January 20 and December 31, 2025, the highest annual total in at least 15 years. [^325-a1] The Bureau of Land Management confirmed this figure in its official “Progress on Public Lands” report published January 6, 2026. A separate E&E News/Politico analysis using a slightly different date range (January 20, 2025 through January 6, 2026) counted 5,742 approved APDs. Both figures are broadly consistent with the claim’s “nearly 6,000” characterization.

The 55% increase figure is approximately correct when measured against the comparable Biden-era period. [^325-a2] E&E News reported that BLM approved 5,742 APDs between January 20, 2025, and January 6, 2026, compared to 3,696 approvals during the same calendar window in 2024-2025 under Biden. That represents a 55.3% increase. The BLM’s own comparison claims a 63.7% increase “compared to his predecessor over the same period,” likely using a slightly different date range or including Indian country permits differently.

The Trump administration reversed or rolled back multiple Biden-era drilling regulations. [^325-a3] Key reversals include: (a) Executive Order revoking Biden’s January 6, 2025, withdrawal of 625 million acres of offshore waters from future leasing; (b) rolling back the BLM’s 2024 Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Rule, which was the first comprehensive update to the federal leasing framework since 1988; (c) the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (enacted July 4, 2025) reversed IRA-era royalty rate increases from 16.67% back to 12.5%, extended APD validity from 3 years to 4 years, and mandated expedited NEPA reviews. These are substantive regulatory changes.

The Biden administration itself approved more drilling permits in its first year than Trump’s first term did in the same period. [^325-a4] According to the Center for Biological Diversity using BLM data, Biden approved 3,557 permits in his first year versus 2,658 for Trump’s first year — a 34% higher rate under Biden. Over the first two years, Biden approved 6,430 permits compared to Trump’s 6,172. The narrative that Biden suppressed drilling permitting is more complicated than the claim suggests; Biden’s permitting numbers were initially high because BLM was processing a backlog of applications inherited from the Trump era.

The U.S. oil rig count declined through 2025 even as permit approvals surged. [^325-a6] Baker Hughes data shows the average active U.S. rig count fell from approximately 620 rigs at the start of 2024 to the low-to-mid-540 range by late 2025. As of mid-March 2026, the total U.S. rig count stood at approximately 553. Oil rigs specifically were down 33% from December 2022 levels to 397 in October 2025. This decline occurred despite the permitting surge, demonstrating that permits and drilling activity do not move in lockstep.

Strong Inferences

Thousands of approved drilling permits on federal land remain unused. [^325-a5] BLM records from mid-2024 showed more than 6,000 approved-but-unused permits. A 2021 BLM report found that approximately 50% of the 26 million acres under oil and gas lease on federal land were non-producing. Companies stockpile permits and leases for strategic reasons, including balance sheet management and speculative resale, not necessarily for near-term drilling.

Oil prices, not permitting policy, are the primary driver of drilling investment decisions. [^325-a7] The EIA forecasts WTI crude averaging $65/barrel in 2025 and $51/barrel in 2026, down sharply from $77/barrel in 2024. Average breakeven costs for new U.S. wells range from $61 to $70 per barrel, meaning the 2026 price forecast falls below the threshold at which many new wells are economically viable. The Dallas Fed Energy Survey (Q4 2025) found persistent pessimism among oil and gas executives, with the company outlook index at -15.2. Multiple producers stated that capital efficiencies and returns — not permit availability — drive their investment decisions. Former BP senior economist Mark Finley summarized the dynamic: “The bottom line for what drives investment in U.S. oil production is profitability, primarily driven by oil price, with government policy playing a secondary role.”

Record production despite fewer rigs undermines the premise that permitting was the bottleneck. [^325-a8] U.S. crude oil production hit a record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025 despite the declining rig count, because operators achieved dramatic efficiency gains — drilling longer laterals, focusing on the most productive plays, and using advanced completion techniques. The Permian Basin saw its rig count fall 29% from December 2022 while oil production rose 18%. This pattern demonstrates that the industry’s constraint was never permit availability; it was capital discipline imposed by investors and price signals from global markets.

The EIA forecasts a slight production decline in 2026 despite the permitting surge. [^325-a9] EIA projects U.S. crude oil production will average 13.5 million b/d in 2026, down approximately 100,000 b/d from 2025. The agency attributes this to lower prices and declining rig counts. If permit availability were the binding constraint on production, the 55% increase in APD approvals should translate into production growth. Instead, the opposite is forecast, confirming that the permit-to-production causal chain the claim implies does not hold.

What the Evidence Shows

The numerical core of the claim holds up. The BLM did approve approximately 6,000 drilling permits in Trump’s first year back in office, and this does represent roughly a 55% increase over the comparable Biden-era period. The Trump administration also genuinely reversed several Biden-era regulations, including the 2024 Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Rule and IRA-era royalty rate increases. These are real policy changes with real effects on the economics of federal land drilling.

But the claim constructs a narrative — restrictions lifted, permits approved, energy dominance achieved — that does not survive contact with the data on what actually drives drilling activity. The permit surge exists on paper, but the rig count tells a different story. Companies are not drilling more; they are drilling less, even with a record number of permits in hand. The reason is straightforward: oil prices determine profitability, and with WTI forecast to average $51/barrel in 2026 — below breakeven for many new wells — no amount of permitting acceleration changes the fundamental economics.

The comparison to the Biden era also requires context the claim omits. Biden approved more drilling permits in his first year than Trump’s first term did in the same period, and his first-two-year total exceeded Trump’s. The Biden-era “restrictions” that the claim positions as the obstacle to drilling were primarily procedural — higher bonding requirements, modestly increased royalty rates, updated NEPA review standards. These raised costs at the margin but did not prevent drilling. The evidence shows that permit availability has not been the binding constraint on federal land production for years; companies consistently hold more approved permits than they can or choose to use.

The deeper issue is the gap between the political theater of permitting and the market reality of production. Approving permits is something a president can control. Whether companies actually drill is determined by global oil prices, investor expectations for capital returns, and geological productivity — none of which are responsive to executive orders.

The Bottom Line

The claim’s numbers are largely accurate: approximately 6,000 APDs were approved, and the 55% increase over the Biden-era comparison period is verifiable from BLM data. The regulatory rollbacks are also real and substantive. To that extent, this claim deserves credit for describing actions that were actually taken. But the framing is misleading because it implies a causal chain — from permit approval to increased drilling to energy dominance — that the evidence contradicts. Rig counts fell through 2025, thousands of approved permits sit unused, and EIA forecasts a production decline in 2026. The primary driver of drilling investment is oil prices, not permit availability, and the price outlook is bearish. The claim accurately describes what the government did on paper; it substantially overstates what that paperwork accomplishes in practice.