In fact, the Bureau of Land Management in January approved just 95 permits for oil and natural gas wells across federal lands in the United States, an 85 percent drop from a zenith of 643 issued last April, according to a review of permitting data by E&E News.

Many environmental groups have been frustrated with the rapid pace of approvals, which carved into the number of backlogged permits President Biden inherited by nearly 1,000 by year’s end, seeing it as a betrayal of Biden’s pledges to confront climate change.

But the output from BLM offices in states like New Mexico and Wyoming has gradually declined, and overall permit approvals have dropped after particularly high outputs in the spring and early summer of last year, according to the data.

Last month, permit approvals rallied from their January bottom to 186. But that was still the fourth lowest number of monthly approvals since Biden took office.