365 Days of Claims
Claim #363 of 365
True but Misleading high confidence

The claim is factually accurate, but its framing creates a misleading impression.

geothermallease-salesenergyrenewable-energypaddingscale-problemattribution-problem

The Claim

Generated $24 million in total receipts from leasing 141 parcels totaling 451,893 acres at competitive geothermal lease sales in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

That BLM competitive geothermal lease sales during 2025 across five western states generated $24 million in total receipts from 141 leased parcels covering 451,893 acres. This is a factual aggregate of six individual lease sales.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That $24 million and five-state expansion represent a significant energy achievement. The placement under “Energy Dominance” implies this is part of the administration’s fossil-fuel-forward energy agenda, and the five-state framing suggests the administration unlocked geothermal leasing in states where it wasn’t happening before.

What is conspicuously absent?

First, this is padding — item 361 already claimed credit for the October 2025 Nevada sale ($9.44 million, 86 parcels), which is the largest single component of this aggregate. The same revenue is counted twice.

Second, context of scale. The $24 million in geothermal receipts is 6.7% of the $356.6 million in oil and gas lease revenue claimed in item 345. It is 0.16% of the $14.61 billion in total federal energy revenue in FY2025. This is not a headline achievement — it is a footnote.

Third, geothermal is a renewable energy source, and this administration has been openly hostile to other renewables. Executive Order 14154 defined “energy” to include geothermal but explicitly excluded wind and solar (item 323). The administration claims credit for renewable energy development when convenient while actively undermining the renewable energy sector.

Fourth, the multi-year growth trajectory in geothermal leasing began under the Biden administration. Nevada held sales in November 2023 ($1.03 million), October 2024 ($7.86 million), and October 2025 ($9.44 million). Utah held sales in 2020, 2022, and 2023 before this April 2025 sale. The underlying trend of rising investor interest reflects technology advances in enhanced geothermal systems and data center power demand, not the policies of any single administration.

Padding Analysis: Overlap with Item 361

The October 2025 Nevada geothermal sale — claimed as a standalone “record-breaking” win in item 361 — accounts for $9.44 million and 86 parcels of the $24 million and 141 parcels claimed here. That is 39% of the total revenue and 61% of the total parcels being double-counted. Items 361 and 363 are counting the same federal lease revenue as two separate “wins.”

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The BLM held six competitive geothermal lease sales across five states in 2025, and the aggregate figures in the claim are accurate. 1 The individual sales were: Utah (April 10, 14 parcels, 50,961 acres, $5,663,890), Oregon (July 22, 2 parcels, 5,235 acres, $430,518), California (August 27, 13 parcels, 22,685 acres, $2,711,858), Idaho (September 9, 9 parcels, 24,355 acres, $4,435,226), Nevada (October 21, 86 parcels, 280,559 acres, $9,440,000), and Idaho (December 17, 17 parcels, 68,025 acres, $1,311,996). These sum to 141 parcels, approximately 451,820 acres, and approximately $23.99 million — consistent with the claimed 141 parcels, 451,893 acres, and $24 million (minor differences reflect rounding in acreage reporting).

The October 2025 Nevada sale, already claimed as item 361, is the single largest component of this aggregate at $9.44 million (39% of total revenue). 2 Items 361 and 363 count the same revenue twice. This is a textbook example of the padding lens — one factual event repackaged as multiple “wins.”

The multi-state expansion of geothermal leasing in 2025 reflects implementation of IM 2026-004, which mandated annual competitive sales in all states with pending nominations. 3 However, that instruction memorandum was issued December 16, 2025 — after four of the six sales had already occurred (Utah in April, Oregon in July, California in August, and Idaho/Nevada in September/October). The sales in those states were driven by nominations that accumulated over prior years and by BLM state offices acting on existing interest, not by the December policy directive. The December Idaho sale is the only one that post-dates the IM.

The 2025 California sale was the first BLM geothermal sale in that state since 2016, and the Idaho sales appear to be among the first in that state in recent years. 4 This multi-state expansion is genuinely significant for the geothermal industry. ThinkGeoEnergy noted the nine-year gap in California leasing. However, the Biden administration’s BLM had been processing nominations in these states and the expansion reflects accumulated industry interest — not a policy shift unique to this administration.

In context of scale, $24 million in geothermal receipts is a rounding error in federal energy revenue. 5 The same administration claimed $356.6 million in oil and gas lease revenue in item 345 — nearly 15 times the geothermal total. Total federal energy revenue (from the Office of Natural Resources Revenue) was $14.61 billion in FY2025. The geothermal total represents 0.16% of that figure. For further perspective, the single August 2008 BLM geothermal sale in Nevada generated $28.2 million — exceeding the entire 2025 multi-state aggregate.

Strong Inferences

The aggressive per-acre revenue in Utah ($111/acre) and Idaho ($182/acre for the September sale) reflects growing private-sector interest in geothermal energy, driven by enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology and data center power demand. 6 Multiple companies competed in each sale — Ormat, Invenergy, Buffalo River Minerals, Bennett Creek Resources, and others. This competitive interest predates the current administration and reflects market forces: geothermal provides reliable baseload renewable power, which is increasingly valuable as data center demand surges. The Biden-era October 2024 Nevada sale ($7.86 million) already demonstrated strong market interest.

Claiming this as “Energy Dominance” is ironic because geothermal is a renewable energy source that this administration’s broader policies actively undermine. 7 Executive Order 14154 defined “energy” to include geothermal but excluded wind and solar. The administration has revoked offshore wind leases, paused renewable energy permitting on federal lands, and rolled back clean energy tax incentives. Geothermal gets claimed as a “win” while sister renewable technologies are targeted for elimination. This selective embrace reveals that “energy dominance” is more rhetorical category than coherent policy framework.

What the Evidence Shows

The numbers in this claim are accurate. Six BLM competitive geothermal lease sales in 2025 across five states generated approximately $24 million from 141 parcels covering roughly 452,000 acres. The individual state totals, verified through BLM press releases, sum to within rounding distance of the claimed figures.

But accuracy is not the same as significance. The most important context is that this claim is padding — the largest component ($9.44 million from 86 Nevada parcels) was already counted as item 361’s “record-breaking” standalone win. Repackaging the same revenue as part of an aggregate total inflates the achievement list without adding any new accomplishment. This is the denominator problem in reverse: instead of omitting context to make a number look bigger, the administration is double-counting to make the list look longer.

The $24 million in geothermal revenue, while a positive development for the geothermal industry, is genuinely small. It is one-fifteenth of the oil and gas lease revenue this administration touts in item 345, and less than the single 2008 Nevada geothermal sale ($28.2 million). Presenting this as a marquee energy achievement in a “365 wins” list reveals more about the need to pad the list than about the significance of the activity.

The multi-state expansion into California, Idaho, and Oregon is genuinely new and worth noting. California hadn’t held a BLM geothermal sale since 2016, and the Idaho sales represent fresh competitive interest. But most of these sales predated the December 2025 policy directive (IM 2026-004) that mandated annual sales, meaning they happened because of accumulated industry nominations processed by career BLM staff — not because of a policy breakthrough from this administration.

The Bottom Line

The claim is factually accurate but misleading in three ways. First, it is padding — 39% of the revenue and 61% of the parcels were already claimed as item 361’s standalone achievement. Second, the $24 million figure, while real, is trivial in the context of federal energy revenue and smaller than a single 2008 geothermal lease sale. Third, the multi-state expansion reflects market-driven demand for geothermal energy that predates this administration’s policies. To the extent this is a “win,” it is a win for the geothermal industry and for career BLM staff who processed the nominations — and it is ironic that an administration hostile to renewable energy claims credit for the fastest-growing segment of renewable energy on federal lands.

Footnotes

  1. BLM, “BLM geothermal leases in Utah sale net over $5.6 million,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-geothermal-leases-utah-sale-net-over-56-million; BLM, “BLM geothermal leases in Oregon sale net more than $430,000,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-geothermal-leases-oregon-sale-net-more-430000; BLM, “BLM geothermal lease sales in California net over $2.7 million,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-geothermal-lease-sales-california-net-over-27-million; BLM, “BLM geothermal lease sales in Idaho net over $4 million,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-geothermal-lease-sales-idaho-net-over-4-million-0; BLM, “BLM Nevada Geothermal Lease Sale October Results,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-nevada-geothermal-lease-sale-october-results; BLM, “BLM geothermal lease sales in Idaho net over $1.3 million,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-geothermal-lease-sales-idaho-net-over-13-million ↩

  2. See item 361 analysis and BLM, “BLM Nevada Geothermal Lease Sale October Results,” https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-nevada-geothermal-lease-sale-october-results; ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM Nevada geothermal lease sale nets over USD 9 million in bids on 86 parcels,” https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/blm-nevada-geothermal-lease-sale-nets-over-usd-9-million-in-bids-on-86-parcels/ ↩

  3. BLM, “Promoting Annual Competitive Geothermal Lease Sales (IM 2026-004),” December 16, 2025, https://www.blm.gov/policy/im2026-004 ↩

  4. ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM bids out 13 parcels in California geothermal lease sale for over $2.7 million,” https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/blm-bids-out-13-parcels-in-california-geothermal-lease-sale-for-over-2-7-million/; ThinkGeoEnergy, “BLM Idaho geothermal lease sale nets $4.4 million on nine parcels,” https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/blm-idaho-geothermal-lease-sale-nets-4-4-million-on-nine-parcels/ ↩

  5. See item 345 analysis (oil and gas lease revenue); DOI, “Record Geothermal Lease Sale Generates $28 Million in Bids,” August 8, 2008, https://www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/archive/news/archive/08_News_Releases/080808b.html ↩

  6. ThinkGeoEnergy, “Geothermal lease sale in Utah sets new record for highest revenue per acre,” https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/utah-geothermal-lease-sale-nets-usd-5-6-million/; BLM, “BLM announces geothermal lease sale results in Nevada” (October 2024), https://www.blm.gov/announcement/blm-announces-geothermal-lease-sale-results-nevada ↩

  7. Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” January 20, 2025; see item 323 analysis ↩