President Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency has helped clear hurdles and push the U.S. to the fastest rate of new oil and gas drilling permits in years, running 44% ahead of the Biden administration at the same point in his term.

As of June 18, the Interior Department had approved 2,990 permits on federal and Indian lands, compared with 2,071 for President Biden in 2021, according to government data shared with The Washington Times.

That works out to roughly 600 permits monthly, a pace that hasn’t been reached in nearly two decades, as the department worked to fulfill Mr. Trump’s mandate to “drill, baby, drill.”

Energy advocates said the Trump team is trying to reverse years of Biden inaction and get more oil and gas development in the pipeline.

“These permitting figures underscore a shift in this administration’s energy strategy — from the Biden administration’s approach, which used a range of tools to constrain oil and gas production, to one that allows producers greater freedom and flexibility to make production decisions based on market conditions,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research.

Mr. Trump is eager to continue the pace.

“To The Department of Energy: Drill, Baby, Drill!!! And I mean now!!!” he said on social media earlier this week, lapsing into periodic all-capital letters.

He also made that pledge in his inaugural address.

During the transition from Mr. Biden, the U.S. was already the global leader, producing more crude than any other country ever.

Mr. Trump declared an energy emergency nonetheless. He said Americans were vulnerable to high energy prices and the U.S. was too dependent on foreign sources.

He revoked some environmental restrictions, ordered reviews of others and called for departments to streamline the permitting process.

The Interior Department announced emergency permitting reforms in April to reduce the process to 28 days.

The process averaged more than 250 days under Mr. Biden, according to Reuters. The average during the first Trump administration was 172 days.

Federal lands account for about a quarter of U.S. crude oil production and one-tenth of natural gas.

The Interior Department, which didn’t respond to an inquiry for this article, auctions off leases of land for exploration. If a parcel is considered commercially viable, the department can approve a permit for drilling.

Techniques developed in the past two decades have made previously unviable land candidates for drilling, reversing decades of a slide and catapulting the U.S. to become the global leader in oil and gas production.

The Biden administration’s record on oil is deeply divisive and difficult to characterize.

In 2020, Mr. Biden promised “no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, Period, Period.”

However, even as he promoted and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money into renewable energy, the Interior Department approved more drilling permits than the first Trump administration.

Experts said it was mainly on land leased by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden moved to shut down new leases.

A federal court blocked a 2021 leasing “pause,” but that didn’t stop the administration’s slow roll of lease auctions.

Mr. Biden also moved to cancel some leases in places such as Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A federal judge overturned that 2024 decision three months ago.

“The Biden guys kept saying that under their watch there was record drilling, but that was in spite of the administration, not because of it,” Mr. Pyle said. “Biden’s de facto moratorium on leasing will impact future development, which is why it is important for President Trump to open up as much available acres as possible so that we can get back on track.”

Support for Biden-style renewable fuel programs has slipped in recent years, according to the Pew Research Center.

In data released this month, Pew said public support for expanding solar power has dropped from 90% in 2020 to 77% this year. Support for expanding wind and solar instead of fossil fuels has toppled from 79% to 60%, still a majority but well less than what it was five years ago.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.