I'm not sure what the situation is in this case, but in the past there have been a lot of licenses which were sold under previous laws and/or previous government administrations that can't easily be _legally_ limited.

As a result, the current administration can't force them not to use those licenses, but are still likely to put at least _some_ pressure on them to minimize their use of them.

I can’t imagine any country where the legislature couldn’t pass a law revoking s sold license

But do you know of any country where getting legislation like this passed would be straightforward and apolitical? It's not that the can't do it, it's that it would be difficult to do and would require expenditure of political capital.

If a majority government came to power and had this as a major part of their platform I suspect they'd try to get legislation passed, but any other government is not going to expend as much effort on it as would be needed to get it through.

It can get very difficult, especially if it undermines the "trust" in the government.

Could the US government cancel outstanding bonds? Sure. Would it harm sales of future bonds? Yep.

It's much better and easier to just buy them back if the will is there.

That's understandable, and perhaps buybacks should be attempted (around here there are conservatories that buy up "pristine" land and then take it off the market, either by themselves or via covenants with the gov't).

Ask people in the EU what is currently happening to their forests with the energy crisis looming. Everyone now wants wood, or potentially freeze to death.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/europe-...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/07/world/europe/...

The "freeze to death" risk is largely overblown. Just wear more layers of clothing, and get a few more blankets for your bed. You might be uncomfortable but you'll be fine. Heating your home to 25 C in the dead of winter so you can wear t-shirts instead of sweaters is a modern luxury, not a necessity.

Most of the deaths attributed to the cold will be noticeable only in a slight uptick of elderly people living alone dying at a higher rate than usual, followed by a dip in their death rate in the subsequent months. The years of potential lost life (YPLL) will be minimal.

In my village in Kent in the UK, the chap that sells logs had a record day when the latest energy price cap was announced in July.