Today, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 2728, the Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act¸ with a bipartisan vote of 235-187. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), would protect American jobs and American energy production by limiting the Obama Administration’s ability to impose duplicative regulations on hydraulic fracturing on federal lands.

“Today, the House of Representatives took an important step forward to protecting jobs and American energy production. This bipartisan legislation ensures that duplicative federal hydraulic fracturing regulations do not stand in the way of increased American energy production. States have successfully, efficiently, and safely been regulating this process for the past 60 years and imposing a ‘one-size-fits-all’ federal regulatory structure, as the Obama Administration is attempting to do, is both unnecessary and simply will not work. I am encouraged by the House’s bipartisan support of this common sense legislation that will create jobs and expand energy production and urge the Senate to take immediate action on this legislation that’s vital to America’s economic future,” said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04).

“The shale energy boom has brought about an energy revolution which is powering our economic recovery and creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying American energy jobs. Energy from affordable, abundant and clean natural gas has also put our country in a position to make us once again globally competitive in manufacturing and grow good, middle class jobs from our manufacturing renaissance. In order to protect these jobs we must limit the federal government’s ability slow down energy production with duplicative regulations and unnecessary red tape. With today’s bipartisan passage of the Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, we are ensuring that states can continue to produce affordable energy in a safe, clean and reliable manner that promotes efficiency, creates jobs and saves taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Bill Flores (TX-17).

The Department of the Interior this year announced proposed regulations on hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, which will cost jobs and decrease energy production by adding costly and burdensome layers of red tape. H.R. 2728, the Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, would prohibit the Interior Department from enforcing federal hydraulic fracturing regulations in any state that already has regulations and recognizes states’ authority to regulate this type of activity.

###
Printable PDF of this document