Sierra Club Statement on Draft Natural Resources Committee Reconciliation Text

Last night, the House Committee on Natural Resources unveiled its proposed section for the massive Republican energy, tax, and national security bill.

The sprawling proposal, released in the dead of night, includes dozens of provisions that would benefit the oil and gas industry and other corporations, at the expense of American families.

A markup of the draft legislative text is scheduled for May 6.

In response, Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, released the following statement:

“This proposal is a corporate polluter’s wishlist. The only way it could be friendlier to Big Oil CEOs would be if they wrote it themselves. Let’s be clear, this proposal is a means to an end. The end is tax cuts for billionaires, and the means are selling off the public lands that belong to the American people. These provisions enable drilling and mining as quickly, lucratively, and free from public scrutiny as possible, even allowing the fossil fuel industry to buy their way out of judicial oversight. It’s a giveaway to industry, and Americans should not stand for it.”

Among the draft proposals are:

• Handing over our public lands to corporate polluters:
  • Mandating oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic Refuge
  • Ending protections for the pristine Boundary Waters watershed
  • Reinstating canceled leases for the proposed Twin Metals mine
• Expanded drilling on public lands:
  • Requiring at least four lease sales per year for oil and gas drilling in Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming, along with any other state with “available land” under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA).
  • Forbidding the Bureau of Land Management from adding new stipulations or mitigation measures to leases – only those from applicable land use plans
  • Reauthorizing noncompetitive leasing
• Rolling back common-sense fiscal reforms that hold the fossil fuel industry accountable to pay their fair share:
  • Reinstating a 12.5% royalty rate, which was first put in place more than 100 years ago from current level of 16.67%
  • Authorizing royalty reductions for noncompetitive and reinstated leases “due to uneconomic or other circumstances”
• Gutting bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA):
  • If project sponsors pay a fee (equal to 125% of estimated costs of preparing NEPA document), environmental assessments must be finalized within six months and environmental impact statements within one year –
  • Prohibiting judicial review for any sponsored EAs/EISs
• Fast-tracking drilling permits:
  • Extending Application for Permit to Drill (APD) terms to 4 years (from 3 years under current federal rules)
  • Requiring regulations within two years establishing “permit-by-rule” – operators may certify compliance with the regulations and begin drilling within 45 days
  • Forgoing federal permits, bonds or mitigation measures for drilling on certain non-federal lands overlying federal oil and gas resources
• Scrapping Resource Management Plans (RMPs):
  • Prohibiting the implementation of the Rock Springs, Miles City, Buffalo, North Dakota and Colorado River Valley/Grand Junction resource management plans