produce oil and natural gas america needs. carley: once the leases are in hand, oil companies need permits for drilling to start. every time the biden administration is questioned over energy policies, he says there are 9000 unused permits by oil companies, he s saying companies are complaining for no reason. what is your response to that? yeah, you know, i wish that the federal government were so efficient and so quick at processing leases and permits that we didn t need to continually have a pipeline of leases and permits to get business done. these leases on federal lands and moving to the permit stage sometimes take in excess of three, five, seven years to complete. when you have that timeline and business before you produce the product you turn around and sell to consumers who demand it, you need a continual process and pipeline available in order to meet that demand.