10.10.22

Hoeven: Biden Administration Needs to Empower America to Return to Energy Dominance & Independence

Senator Outlines Efforts to Increase U.S. Domestic Energy Production to Bring Down Prices for Consumers, Reduce Inflation

BISMARCK, N.D. – At the Great Plains Empower ND Energy Conference today, Senator John Hoeven outlined the impact of high energy prices on American consumers and businesses, both at the pump and throughout the economy. The senator stressed the need for the Biden administration to empower U.S. domestic energy production to help bring down inflation and reduce the nation’s dependence on OPEC and adversaries like Russia and Venezuela. To this end, Hoeven is working to: 

  • Expand development on federal lands of the nation’s abundant taxpayer-owned energy resources, including its coal, oil and natural gas reserves.
  • Streamline the permitting process for the development of infrastructure needed to get energy to market.
  • Reduce duplicative and burdensome regulations that discourage and increase the costs of energy development.

“Just a few years ago, the U.S. was energy dominant, having become the world’s largest oil and gas producers and a net exporter of energy,” said Hoeven. “Now, the Biden administration has increased our reliance OPEC, as well as hostile nations like Russia and Venezuela, while draining our nation’s strategic reserves. Energy production is more than an economic issue, it is a national security issue. President Biden needs to take the handcuffs off U.S. energy producers and empower them to produce more energy here at home. That’s how we reduce inflation and bring down energy prices for American consumers, and it’s exactly what we’re pushing for every single day.”

Increasing Energy Development on Federal Lands

Hoeven is working to pass legislation that would take immediate action to increase U.S. energy production. Among other priorities, the bill prohibits any presidential moratoria on new energy leases and requires administration to hold oil and natural gas lease sales in each state with land available for leasing. The legislation also prohibits drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) until the Secretary of the Interior issues a plan to increase oil and gas production on federal lands and waters. 

Streamlining Permitting & Reducing the Regulatory Burden

Further, Hoeven recently helped introduce legislation, sponsored by Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), to comprehensively reform federal permitting and project reviews. Importantly, the bill helps protect against federal overreach by codifying Trump-era policies like:

  • Modernizing and streamlining the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review and permitting process.
  • The Navigable Waters Protection Rule’s definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act, ensuring private property rights are protected.
  • Rules to prevent states from unreasonably blocking energy projects and those designed to streamline permitting for critical energy projects.

At the same time, Hoeven is advancing his Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Mineral Spacing Act to remove the BLM permitting requirement in instances when the federal government owns less than half of the subsurface minerals within a drilling spacing unit and have no surface rights in the impacted area. Doing so would eliminate duplicative regulations, better respect the rights of private mineral holders and empower greater domestic oil and natural gas production.

 

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