Republicans are mining what they hope is a rich vein of public sentiment favoring fossil fuels with a sled of legislation introduced since January that seeks to unbridle domestic oil and gas producers from regulatory restraints allegedly being exploited by the Biden administration in pushing “rush to green energy policies.”
Those proposals include a 17-bill energy package vetted before House panels in Washington and during Texas field hearings—the Unleashing American Energy Act sponsored by Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.), the Stop Trying to Obsessively Vilify Energy Act filed by Rep. Bill Huizenga [R-Mich.), and a mound of other measures matriculating through committees.
Add the newly proposed American Energy Act to that list.
Introduced Feb. 22 by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), and cosponsored by 12 other House Republicans, the proposal seeks to ensure that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency within the United States Department of Interior that manages federal lands, approves “in a timely fashion” applications for permits to drill (APDs) on federal public lands.
“My ‘American Energy Act’ will fight back against Green New Deal extremism and help reduce sky-high gas prices that Americans are still struggling with!” Boebert said in a Feb. 22 Twitter post. “We’re going to rebuild America’s energy dominance!”
Boebert’s introduction of the American Energy Act comes a day before The Heartland Institute’s 15th Annual International Conference on Climate Change begins in Orlando, Florida. She is among speakers at the three-day event, entitled “The True Crisis: Climate Change or Climate Policy.”
Illinois-based Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank with close ties to former President Donald Trump, said the conference will “analyze the latest climate science and the wrong-headed energy and policy solutions the world’s governments are determined to impose on us all.”
Boebert and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are among scheduled speakers at the conference’s closing luncheon on Feb. 25.
Drilling Down Into Delays
In a statement to Fox News Digital that accompanied introduction of her bill, Boebert accused the Biden administration of “colluding with Green New Deal extremists to slow down energy leasing, clog up the bureaucratic pipeline, and threaten American energy producers with frivolous lawsuits.”
The Biden administration is only putting about 20 percent of eligible federal land up for new oil leases in many areas of the country and is “slow-walking” applications through a “broken permitting process” without addressing a backlog of more than 4,500 APDs, industry executives told congressional lawmakers in Texas during the Feb. 13 and Feb. 16 hearings.
After assuming office in January 2021, the Biden administration did not hold a lease sale until June 2022. Only 20 percent of parcels originally slated for lease were offered at 50-percent royalty hikes.
In 2022, the federal government approved 233 drilling permits a month on federal land, down from more than 400 a month during the Trump administration. Oil production on federal lands fell to 12.28 million barrels per day in November 2022, down from more than 13 million barrels a day under the Trump administration.
According to the BLM, as of Jan. 31, there were 4,896 pending APDs on federal lands and another 179 on Indian property.
Boebert’s office maintains APD permitting times have increased from an average of 94 days in June 2019 to 182 days under the Biden administration—which she characterizes as a failure to perform by design.
Her bill would extend the term of APDs from two years to four years and ensure that the BLM and other federal agencies “process permits under a valid existing lease regardless of any unrelated civil action” which would prohibit “activist judges from unilaterally vacating valid energy leases.”
House Natural Resources Federal Lands Subcommittee Chair Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), among the bill’s 12 sponsors, said the measure is timely because the administration is not timely in responding to the oil and gas industry’s concerns.
“For over two years, the Biden administration has slow-walked oil and gas permits, ultimately driving up energy costs for the American people,“ he said in a statement. ”It doesn’t have to be this way, and I thank Congresswoman Boebert for leading legislation to speed up the permitting process from frivolous lawsuits.”
Chisel Judges Out of Process
The bill requires courts to remand lease sale environmental reviews back to agencies to remedy issues when necessary, blocking federal judges from vacating lease sales and tying up APDs in courts for years.The Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based trade group that represents 200 oil and gas producers across 10 western states, applauded Boebert’s proposed bill.
“The West Slope of Colorado is held back economically because of uncertainty on federal lands, which make up the majority of production in her district,” Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a statement accompanying the bill.
“The Biden administration has been increasing that uncertainty by threatening to cancel permits after only two years,” she said. “In addition, environmental groups litigate any leases sold in an attempt to convince judges to cancel them on the basis of incomplete NEPA. (National Environmental Protection Act).”
Boebert’s proposed American Energy Act joins a crowded shelf of bills addressing the nation’s energy policies, most filed by House Republicans after the GOP gained a chamber majority during November’s midterm elections.
The Unleashing American Energy package already working through the committee approval process includes seven proposals that address oil and gas regulation and push for greater capacity to export as a way to remedy “artificial” policy restrictions that have increased costs.
Among proposals are measures that would mandate 30-day federal approval of “cross-border energy infrastructure,” aka pipelines; remove “public interest” when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) weighs natural gas export proposals; repeal the federal Natural Gas Tax; prohibit a president from banning fracking; and require the National Petroleum Council to research U.S. refinery capacity and needs.
Two resolutions “express the sense of Congress” that there should be “no restrictions” on oil and gas exports, and of “disapproval” of Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit.
Boebert’s American Energy Act is her fourth proposal of the 2023-24 congressional session. She has filed bills seeking to defund Planned Parenthood, remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act, and amend the Mineral Leasing Act “to clarify the effect of a pending civil action on the processing of an application for a permit to drill.”
