Bishop releases new draft of federal lands energy policy overhaul

US House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) released a new draft of proposed legislation to overhaul federal lands energy policy late on Oct. 31. The committee's Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, which discussed two earlier drafts at hearings in October, will examine this one on Nov. 7.

"This comprehensive overhaul of upstream energy policy creates the regulatory certainty that is needed to spur economic investment on federal lands," Bishop said. "With these reforms, we can harness the full potential of our domestic resources, increase revenues to federal and state governments, and build a foundation of energy strength at home and abroad."

The new discussion draft contained provisions to:

• Share revenue and royalties from new federal offshore oil, gas, and minerals activity with affected coastal states, and cap such payments to Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, each of which were authorized under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act.

• Limit the US president's authority to withdraw US Outer Continental Shelf areas from oil and gas leasing and cancel such a withdrawal President Barack Obama made of the US Arctic OCS on July 15, 2016.

• Require the US Interior secretary to include any lease sale omitted from the existing federal OCS management program in any new one which is prepared as soon as practicable.

• Impose fees on offshore operators to cover inspection costs, which would not change for 10 years and that would be deposited in a new Ocean Energy Safety Fund.

• Reduce delays offshore geologic and geophysical contractors encountered in obtaining Incidental Take Authorizations from the National Marine Fisheries Service for work they wanted to do along the Mid-Atlantic OCS in 2016. NMFS proposed issuing ITAs to five offshore geophysical contractors to work along the South and Mid-Atlantic OCS on June 5.

• Provide a mechanism for states with existing onshore oil and gas oversight programs to assume responsibility for such activity on federal acreage within those states.

• Directly pay to states shares of federal onshore royalties and revenue they now receive that presently are deposited in the US Treasury, and rescind fees which are imposed to cover costs of distributing that money from the Treasury.

• Designate preferred onshore oil and gas leasing areas under the 1976 Federal Land Policy Act and require the Interior secretary to update resource management plans and schedule lease sales as soon as practicable.

• Prevent enforcement of any federal regulation covering hydraulic fracturing on public land and defer to any state or tribal regulations governing the process.

• Review the 2012 integrated activity plan for oil and gas activity within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to determine acreage there which should be made available for leasing.

Like previous discussion drafts, this one's provisions are subject to changes before they become part of or are dropped from an introduced bill.