Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized revisions to how the federal government measures and verifies oil and gas production rates on federal lands (Onshore Orders 3, 4 and 5). House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement:
“The Administration is good at issuing new regulations that ignore input from the folks they seek to… Read more »
U.S. Secretary of the Interior (DOI) Sally Jewell is developing controversial plans to cordon off approximately 10 million acres of federal lands located in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming from mineral development. The withdrawals are one plank of the Obama administration's broader regulatory scheme to create a de-facto Endangered Species Act listing for the sage grouse.… Read more »
Today, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held an oversight hearing on the status of the federal government’s inconsistent and unsuccessful wolf management efforts in the United States. The panel, which included local and state witnesses, focused on red wolves in the Southeast, gray wolves in the Northwest and Western Great Lakes and Mexican wolves in the Southwest.
“For… Read more »
Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held a markup on four bills including H.R. 5259 (Rep. Ryan Zinke), the Certainty for States and Tribes Act. The bill will reestablish the Department of the Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee. H.R. 5259 passed by a vote of 22-13.
“With the Obama Administration’s moratorium on all new federal coal leases, it is important… Read more »
Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held a markup on four bills including H.R. 5032 (Rep. Dave Brat, R-VA). The bill removes a federal land-use restriction on a piece of land in the town of Louisa, Virginia so that it may be repurposed to provide residents with a safe supply of drinking water.
Louisa has spent millions of dollars studying ways to comply with… Read more »
Tonight, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3881 (Rep. Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson), the Cooperative Management of Mineral Rights Act of 2016, by a vote of 395-3.
In the Allegheny National Forest (ANF) the federal government owns the surface rights, but the subsurface mineral rights have always been privately owned. Through a liberal interpretation of an antiquated statute and a… Read more »
Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing on improving management and utilization of federal lands in and around North Las Vegas. Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT), Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-NV), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and a panel of expert witnesses gathered to discuss a path forward to better serve the local community.
The outskirts of… Read more »
Today, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held an oversight hearing on the “Culture of Corruption” at the Department of the Interior (DOI). During the hearing, Mary Kendall, DOI Deputy Inspector General (IG), acknowledged that Jonathan Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service, purposely lied to the Secretary of the Interior about a book deal he improperly obtained for… Read more »
Today, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on “Local and State Perspectives on BLM’s Draft Planning 2.0 Rule.”
As proposed, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Planning 2.0 rule would significantly diminish local input and shift most public land use planning decisions to bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
“Instead of keeping most planning activity at the… Read more »
Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held a legislative hearing on the discussion draft of “Locally-elected Officials Cooperating with Agencies in Land Management Act (LOCAL Management Act).”
The enormity of federal land ownership in numerous states has caused immense problems for counties, contributing to diminished tax bases and a range of duplicative and costly regulations that… Read more »
