U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV), chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, are unveiling bipartisan legislation to address our nation’s broken permitting system.
The Energy Permitting Reform Act consists of targeted, consequential improvements to permitting laws within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. If enacted, this bill would expedite permitting of oil and gas production on federal lands, overturn President Biden’s ban on new liquefied natural gas export approvals, and fix the Rosemont court decision which threatens hard rock mining on federal lands. The bill would also ensure that new transmission lines meaningfully improve electric reliability and actually benefit customers.
“For far too long, Washington’s disastrous permitting system has shackled American energy production and punished families in Wyoming and across our country. Congress must step in and fix this process,” said ranking member Barrasso. “Our bipartisan bill secures future access to oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters. We fix the disastrous Rosemont decision so that we can produce more American minerals instead of relying on China. We permanently end President Biden’s reckless ban on natural gas exports. And we ensure we can strengthen our electric grid while protecting customers. This legislation is an urgent and important first step towards improving our nation’s broken permitting process.”
Additional provisions benefitting Wyoming would:
- Prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from requiring a federal drilling permit for wells that access federal oil and gas from state or private lands if the federal government owns less than 50 percent of the subsurface oil and gas.
- Prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from requiring a federal drilling permit or issuing surface restrictions for wells drilled on state or private lands vertically into non-federal oil and gas and then horizontally into federal oil and gas.
- Require the Bureau of Land Management to offer for lease at least 50 percent of the acreage nominated by oil and gas producers in the Bureau’s quarterly lease sales.
- Limit the statute of limitations for lawsuits challenging energy and mineral leases, permits, and other approvals to 150 days – down from 6 years under current law.
- Establish deadlines to process applications to lease coal on federal lands.
