Sacred Native American sites, public lands, and undeveloped landscapes are under threat as the House Natural Resources Committee released draft legislation impacting fossil fuel business regulations on public lands. This proposal by President Trump and congressional Republicans has raised concerns among environmentalists.
The draft legislation proposes reducing fossil fuel royalty rates, expanding drilling access, reinstating canceled mining leases, and revoking Western resource management plans that balanced conservation with development.
Environmentalists criticize the draft for potential negative impacts on public lands, wildlife, and the environment. “Republicans are treating our most precious wild places as opportunities for industry to plunder, profit, and pollute,” remarked Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The draft arrives amid projections of federal revenue loss due to proposed tax cuts for billionaires, noted Nunes in an interview with Inside Climate News. She highlighted that her organization does not support these tax breaks. “They’re undermining their own ability to pay for that,” she stated.
If enacted, the draft would lower royalties from fossil fuel companies for drilling on public lands to 12.5 percent, a rate unchanged since 1920 until the Inflation Reduction Act raised it to 16.67 percent in 2022.
Additionally, the legislation would levy an “acreage rent” on renewable energy operations on public lands, potentially disadvantaging wind and solar projects which require more land.
“This legislation benefits polluters at the cost of a clean energy transition,” Nunes said.
The American Petroleum Institute, representing the U.S. natural gas and oil industry, described the draft as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” facilitating resource development on federal lands and waters.
Controversial impacts are anticipated in the West, where increased drilling is seen as unnecessary by local communities, given U.S. oil and gas production is at an all-time high.
Under the proposed text, the Secretary of Interior would be restricted from enforcing Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans in Miles City, Montana, and Buffalo, Wyoming, which ban new coal mining leases in the Powder River Basin. Environmentalists and ranchers oppose changes. The draft would also prevent the Department of Interior from enforcing a BLM plan in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where a compromise plan was reached.
“Congress should not interfere with local land-use plans,” said Julia Stuble, Wyoming state director for the Wilderness Society. She noted that congressional intervention is both redundant and unprecedented, urging opposition to the bill’s restrictions.
The House Committee on Natural Resources will convene on May 6 to debate and amend the legislation before it moves to the budget committee and then to a House floor vote.
Original Story at insideclimatenews.org