Committing Leases for Energy Access Now Act

Floor Speech

The CLEAN Act is designed to speed up geothermal leasing and permitting, which we support. It would add a 30-day deadline for the Secretary to issue geothermal permits to drill if all environmental reviews have been completed.

The CLEAN Act would also require the Department of the Interior to hold lease sales once a year instead of every 2 years. The current leasing schedule means that geothermal developers can wait for years just for the chance to lease public lands, creating delays in getting clean, reliable energy to American communities.

This faster leasing schedule only applies to States where developers have expressed interest in geothermal leasing, so it won't make extra work for field offices that have no reason to do this work.

I thank the bill's sponsor and my colleagues across the aisle for working with the Natural Resources Committee Democrats to retain important agency discretion in which public lands are leased.

The bill, as originally drafted before these revisions, required that the Department of the Interior offer a lease to every piece of public land that the industry expressed an interest in. That old language mirrored language that passed in the big, ugly bill for oil and gas, requiring the Secretary to offer to lease all the public lands that any industry would want.

It doesn't matter if that meant allowing drilling next to a drinking water source like Colorado's Aurora Reservoir or the destruction of beloved trails like a popular trail in North Dakota's Badlands.

Since the passage of the big, ugly bill, BLM has put up public lands for leasing in both of these areas, creating local backlash. Geothermal drilling is certainly less dangerous than oil and gas, but there are still risks and places that are inappropriate to lease for environmental, cultural, and other reasons.

Natural Resources Committee Democrats have worked across the aisle in good faith to make a compromise, which will allow BLM to lease most of the industry-nominated public lands but allows the Secretary to choose not to lease lands for legal or environmental reasons.

We can speed up the build-out of clean, reliable geothermal energy without sacrificing special places and community support.

While I recognize that this bill still contains controversial provisions, including the requirement that 75 percent of nominated parcels for geothermal development be leased, we are encouraged by the reduction of that threshold.

Committee Democrats are urging the Senate to carefully consider the legislation and prioritize a balanced approach to managing our public lands, one that prioritizes responsible management of public lands for our communities and for the environment.

Mr. Speaker, Committee Democrats urge our colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source