Committing Leases for Energy Access Now Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, I support this amendment.

I am glad to see that many of my Republican colleagues are taking a real interest, obviously, in clean air and energy production, but clean energy projects can't truly be considered clean if the permitting agencies don't have the proper time to conduct real NEPA reviews.

Again, the National Environmental Policy Act is there in place and wanting to extend the time, saying it is unnecessary without actually putting it in writing to have the necessary time. We are talking about drilling permits here.

Congressman Grijalva knows the challenges facing the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, as many of my colleagues know. He has heard directly from staffers who review these permit applications that the timelines in this bill will not work.

Our amendment makes simple changes to make the timelines in this bill more realistic and, in the process, protect many of our communities while we develop the clean, renewable energy we need in our Nation.

I urge my colleagues to listen to the staffers who review these applications and support this commonsense amendment that gives the Bureau of Land Management's staffers the time that they need to review the permit applications.

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