Senate follows House, votes to disapprove BLM Planning 2.0 rule

The US Senate passed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution along party lines to revoke the US Bureau of Land Management’s Planning 2.0 rule by 51 to 48 votes. The Mar. 7 action sent H.J. Res 44 to the White House for President Donald J. Trump’s signature a month after it passed the House by 234 to 186 votes (OGJ Online, Feb. 8, 2017).

Republicans in debate leading up to the Senate’s vote characterized BLM’s rule, which became final on Dec. 1, 2016, as an eleventh hour maneuver that imposed poorly conceived regulations on state and local governments and businesses, including oil and gas producers. Democrats defended it as an overdue update to regulations from the 1980s that did not reflect present-day technologies and conditions.

“This is a fatally flawed rule. Our best option is to overturn it and start working with Interior Sec. [Ryan] Zinke on something better. It’s the Senate’s turn to act and send this resolution to the president for his signature,” Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.) said.

“Passing this resolution and negative work that BLM did over many years is something many of us can’t do,” responded Maria E. Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee’s ranking minority member. “The concept here was to have a transparent, bottoms-up process that incorporated all stakeholders’ views. Once an official in a BLM field office starts working on a resource-management plan, local communities need to be involved.”

Oil and gas association officials applauded the Senate’s action. “BLM’s overreaching rule redefined the concept of multiple use designated by Congress, prioritized preservation over responsible development of the food, fuel, and fiber that support human life, and limited public involvement in the planning process,” Western Energy Alliance Pres. Kathleen Sgamma said in Denver.

A ‘proper rebalancing’

“The former administration characterized the rule as landscape-level planning, but it really was an attempt to treat the West as a blank slate that can simply be written on anew, ignoring realities on the ground, state borders, congressional mandates, rural economies, and individual livelihoods,” Sgamma said. “Westerners welcome the proper rebalancing of federal land management.”

“This is an important step in creating certainty in the regulation of oil and gas in America, and restoring BLM land management for multiple uses as Congress intended,” said Erik Milito, American Petroleum Institute upstream and industry operations director. “Forward-looking energy policies will ensure that the US continues leading the world in the production and refining of oil and gas, and in the reduction of carbon emissions.”

A balanced federal resource-management planning approach is imperative, Milito said. “More than 80% of voters support increased development of US oil and gas. We hope the Senate will build upon today’s pro-jobs and pro-economic policy vote and repeal [BLM’s] harmful Methane and Waste Prevention rule next,” Milito said.

BLM’s Planning 2.0 rule presents a number of challenges that will discourage multiple use interests and sway against oil and gas resources on public lands, said Daniel T. Naatz, Independent Petroleum Association of America senior vice-president of government relations and political affairs.

“The mitigation standard of a net benefit, or net conservation gain, is policymaking that has been put in place through recent executive and secretarial directives and memorandums, and is not based upon laws or rules that have gone through the lawmaking or rulemaking process,” Naatz said. “This new standard is inconsistent with a balanced, multiple-use concept of federal lands and conflicts with the realities of current oil and gas development which, due to technological advances in horizontal drilling, has a vastly reduced footprint—in some cases up to 70% or more—on federal lands.”

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].