Now is Not the Time for an Oil and Gas Free-For-All
Photo credit: Patrick Hendry
This year, Outdoor Alliance is advocating vigorously for public lands and waters to be part of climate solutions. Natural climate solutions—that is, protecting and restoring public lands and waters to increase carbon storage and mitigate climate change’s effects—can fight climate change while providing more outdoor access and supporting the outdoor recreation economy. Protected public lands can guard against the effects of climate change, including floods, droughts, and fires, and preserving open space limits increased global warming. In the face of recent climate change news, it is imperative that we pursue long-lasting social, environmental, and economic benefits on public lands.
Instead, the House members recently passed a suite of bills that would lock up millions of acres of public land for oil and gas development, undue recent progress on climate mitigation, undermine environmental laws that protect public comment periods, and substantially loosen already limited mining safeguards while leaving taxpayers liable for pollution and cleanup. These actions are a direct threat to outdoor recreation access and to the outdoor recreation economy.
A bit more about these bills—the Lower Energy Costs Act (H.R.1) includes bills that focus on fast tracking mining, locking up land for oil and gas development, and severely undermining the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which ensures environmental reviews and a public process for projects on public lands
There is a lot of problematic legislation in H.R. 1, but we are focusing our efforts on the sections that most directly affect public lands and waters.
Proposed and active mines threaten some of our most cherished landscapes across the country. From the South Fork Salmon River to the Grand Canyon, proposed mines can cause irreversible damage to outdoor recreation opportunities; the health of surrounding habitat, lands, and waters; and local and Indigenous communities. In addition, at least 140,000 abandoned mines throughout America leave behind toxic waste, damaging surrounding areas and recreation resources in areas like the Animas River. Our 150 year-old mining law badly needs reform, especially as the demand for critical minerals will put more pressure on mining. Safeguards for pollution, local communities, and the public process will be even more important. The Permitting for Mine Needs (PERMIT-MN) Act, included in the package, would fast-track mining, including expediting mining claims without any proof that there are minerals available to mine, effectively allowing mining companies to lock up public lands for no reason.
Another piece of the package is the TAP American Energy Act, which would make it much more difficult for land managers to balance access, recreation, and conservation with fossil fuel development. The bill would arbitrarily require Interior to hold oil and gas lease sales quarterly, weaken the process for public input, and make it difficult to withdraw lands from mining or development, crucial processes for protecting lands for recreation. Read our full letter to legislators about our concerns with the Permitting for Mine Needs and TAP American Energy Act.
The legislation also includes the Building U.S. Infrastructure through Limited Delays & Efficient Reviews (BUILDER) Act, which would deeply damage NEPA, a mainstay for ensuring sound environmental reviews and public input on major public lands decisions. You can read our full letter to legislators elaborating concerns about the BUILDER Act here.
H.R. 1 also significantly weakens Section 401 Clean Water Act, which grants authority to states and Tribes to protect their waterways when federal projects like dams and pipelines are proposed. Additionally, the bill would undo important sections of the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) a landmark package of climate investments that the outdoor recreation worked hard to support just last year. Specifically, H.R. 1 would repeal an important IRA program designed to reduce methane emissions (a highly potent greenhouse gas), and would also repeal the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is a new program designed to incentivize climate investments.
A recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that H.R.1 will increase the deficit by $2.4 billion in the next ten years, and $5 billion in the ten years that follows. Collectively, this package takes development on public lands in the opposite direction from where the country needs to be heading. The goal of this package is to hasten and expand fossil fuel development on public lands, with fewer safeguards, reviews, and protections than before.
For its proponents, H.R. 1 represents a wishlist for what they would like to see on energy development—a greater investment in mining, coal, and oil and gas. For those lawmakers, the bill is both a political statement and a list of things they hope some of which might be negotiated into a more viable bill. Many lawmakers, in both parties, would like to see some kind of permitting reform pass. For lawmakers who are serious about climate, permitting reform is an opportunity to speed up renewable energy development. For others, this is simply an opportunity to ramp up oil and gas development. For those climate-oriented lawmakers, this latter approach is a step backward.
For people who love the outdoors and public lands, these conversations are incredibly consequential. Where we develop both oil and gas and renewable energy on public lands will affect outdoor recreation access, conservation goals, and our climate outlook.