Saudi Arabia and Russia typically take the lead in setting global production goals. But President Trump, facing a re-election campaign, a plunging economy and American oil companies struggling with collapsing prices, took the unusual step of getting involved after the two countries entered a price war a month ago. Mr. Trump had made an agreement a key priority.

It was unclear, however, whether the cuts would be enough to bolster prices. Before the coronavirus crisis, 100 million barrels of oil each day fueled global commerce, but demand is down about 35 percent. While significant, the cuts agreed to on Sunday still fall far short of what is needed to bring oil production in line with demand.

The plan by OPEC, Russia and other allied producers in a group known as OPEC Plus will slash 9.7 million barrels a day in May and June, or close to 10 percent of the world’s output.

New federal data shows the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump administration’s first-year total of 2,658.

Nearly 2,000 of the drilling permits were approved on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management’s New Mexico office, followed by 843 in Wyoming, 285 in Montana and North Dakota, and 191 in Utah. In California, the Biden administration approved 187 permits — more than twice the 71 drilling permits Trump approved in that state in his first year.

“Biden’s runaway drilling approvals are a spectacular failure of climate leadership,” said Taylor McKinnon at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires ending new fossil fuel extraction, but Biden is racing in the opposite direction.”

Following a popular commitment made on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden instituted a pause on new oil and gas leasing on national public lands while the U.S. Department of the Interior conducts a review of the program. Importantly, the targeted pause does not affect oil and gas under state, tribal, or private subsurface ownership. It is a commonsense move that will allow the administration to become a better steward of the public lands owned by all Americans, from ensuring that the public is involved in land management decisions to providing a fair return to taxpayers for the use of their resources.

The response from the oil industry, however, has been nothing short of dramatic, claiming that the pause will drastically affect production and jobs. A new Center for American Progress analysis finds that these statements are outright false. In reality, companies could continue to begin new drilling operations on unused leases at the current rate for at least the next 10 years without access to any new leases. Despite the industry’s “sky is falling” claims, federal oil and gas development is unlikely to change substantially with a pause on new leasing because the industry already has access to so many acres of public lands.