President Trump's goal of achieving "energy dominance" for the United States includes producing more oil and gas on federal land, but new government statistics show a mixed record on this front during his first year in office. Trump has cast himself as an ally of fossil fuel industries. At a 2017 event he told energy industry leaders, "You've gone through eight years of hell," referring to the time former President Obama was in office. But by two measures there was more oil industry activity on federal lands during the Obama years than Trump's first year. In 2017 the number of oil and gas leases fell to a 10-year low of 38,556. The number of acres leased also declined to a decade-low of 25,742,991. Some of the tables do show more activity. The number of leases issued in 2017 increased by about 42 percent and the number of wells that started drilling increased about 40 percent. These statistics come from the Bureau of Land Management's annual report on the agency's website . The numbers
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