House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today joined Congressman Francisco “Quico” Canseco (TX-23) and Congressman Mike Conaway (TX-11) in Midland, TX for the “2012 American Energy and Jobs Tour: Promoting the Economy Through American Energy” led by the House Energy Action Team (HEAT).
The Members toured a drilling rig and hydraulic fracturing site and then held… Read more »
Internal emails obtained by the House Natural Resources Committee raise significant questions into the science used by the Obama Administration to justify a 20-year ban on uranium development on one million acres of federal land in Arizona. In the emails, scientists within the National Park Service discuss how the potential environmental impacts were “grossly overestimated” in the… Read more »
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) yesterday sent a letter to the Department of the Interior’s Acting Inspector General (IG) Mary Kendall to question her about discrepancies between her testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and documents recently provided to the Committee that suggest she was involved in the process of producing the… Read more »
Interior inspector defends impartiality in report probe
By: Gregory Korte
USA Today
May 23, 2012
When questions came up about how the White House edited an Interior Department report to justify a moratorium on offshore drilling, acting Inspector General Mary Kendall investigated and reported back to Congress only that the report "could have been more clearly worded."
Now documents… Read more »
Dear Secretary Salazar:
Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior ("Department") withdrew 1 million acres in northern Arizona from new uranium mining claims. By taking this action, the Obama Administration voided a bipartisan agreement partially codified in law that has been respected for nearly three decades. In making this decision, you argued the withdrawal was necessary to… Read more »
Dear Ms. Kendall:
As you know, the Committee on Natural Resources ("Committee") has for almost two years been seeking information about how a May 27, 2010 Department of the Interior ("Department") report entitled "Increased Safety Measures for Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf" ("Drilling Moratorium Report") was drafted and then edited in a manner that misrepresented… Read more »
Today, the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands held an oversight field hearing in Longview, Washington on, “Failed Federal Forest Policies: Endangering Jobs, Forests and Species.” The hearing examined how federal implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan and Endangered Species Act has affected local economies, forest health and the Northern Spotted Owl.
“To put it… Read more »
HASTINGS: Time to improve the Endangered Species Act
By House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings
Washington Times
May 18, 2012
When the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon, he spoke about the importance of preserving “the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.” I believe that goal is as important… Read more »
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today released internal documents and audio recordings obtained by the Committee through outside sources, which raise further questions into the highly unusual manner in which the Obama Administration is rewriting a coal production regulation, the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. The documents detail “catastrophic” impacts to… Read more »