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Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act of 2008

Date: July 17, 2008
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Oil and Gas


DRILL RESPONSIBLY IN LEASED LANDS ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 17, 2008)

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Ms. FALLIN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6515 is the ``use it or lose it'' bill that was defeated last month, but today it is coming back with just window dressing added to this version.

The previous version of this bill, H.R. 6251, was rejected by the majority of Republicans and nearly all the oil patch Democrats, including the chairman of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee.

Like the last version, H.R. 6515 breaches contracts by requiring terms under which oil companies may use and bid on leases. In fact, this piece of legislation may actually drive away oil and gas companies from the U.S. and lower the production of energy. It is based on a claim that has been dismissed by the Department of Interior, that the industry is stockpiling 68 million acres of Federal leases.

This bill cannot hide 30 years of shutting off access. In Jimmy Carter's last year as President, over 100 million acres were leased onshore, and it reached 160 million acres under Ronald Reagan. In a good year it is now just 50 million acres. The government and the Democrat leadership is the one that is stockpiling oil and gas leases, and the Speaker is keeping it off the market. Over two billion, that's over 200,000 million acres are not leased.

And according to today's New York Times, when the President decided to lift the ban on OCS oil and gas production, the Speaker responded, I'm not going to let him get away with it.

Well, H.R. 6515 and the Speaker are not living up to their promises.

This bill also purports to open up the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, but the NRPA is already open. Just yesterday the Secretary of the Interior announced a major lease sale for this fall. So 6515 could delay the drilling because the bill now injects new environmental language that is already existing in the NPRA law. And this is an invitation for environmental groups to sue to stop oil production. And they have been filing lawsuits for the last 10 years to stop the production. This is a bad piece of legislation.

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