June 24, 2014
Dear Representative:
The Wilderness Society, on behalf of our 500,000 members and supporters, requests that you vote “No”
on H.R. 4899, The Lowering Gasoline Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act of 2014. Despite its
name, this bill would do little, if anything, to help decrease gasoline prices today – we know that today’s
gasoline prices cannot be addressed by efforts to step up domestic production of oil, let alone natural
gas. Instead, it is a grab bag of shortcuts and sidesteps that would only endanger the health of America’s
public lands by opening them up to drilling. The bill does not offer real solutions, but merely rehashes
controversial legislation that the House of Representatives has passed in recent years that the Senate
has wisely chosen to ignore.
Of great concern to The Wilderness Society, are the following provisions:
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Title II, Subtitle A would constrain the Bureau of Land Management’s ability to appropriately
review Applications to Drill (APD) by speeding up the timeline to approve them. Worse, the bill,
if enacted, would automatically approve the APD if not acted upon in 60 days. This idea is based
on the false premise that quicker action on APDs by BLM will result in more drilling at a faster
pace than current BLM practices. However, this ignores the fact that the oil and gas industry has
obtained nearly 7,000 permits that it is not using. Until the industry acts on the permits it has, it
does not make sense to speed up a process with the intent of giving them more.
Title II, Subchapter B is apparently written to discourage citizens from exercising their right to
administratively appeal oil and gas leasing and permitting decisions by requiring citizens to pay a
$5,000 “documentation fee” for all protests. Not all citizens who are affected by potential
leasing and permitting decisions have the financial resources to pay this fee and this is a penalty
for merely exercising a right to protest.
Title II, Chapter 2 requires that the BLM offer for lease at least 25 percent of all lands nominated
by the oil and gas industry each year, prohibits the issuance of leases on these lands from being
protested, and prohibits the applicability of NEPA to leasing decisions on these lands. It also
requires the BLM to make available all lands that are currently “open” to leasing under existing
land use plans within 18 months of enactment. This would put many leasing decisions in the
hands of the oil and gas industry instead of the BLM who are charged by Congress with ensuring
“multiple-use”, a guiding principle of federal lands under the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act.
Title II, Subtitle C affects leasing decisions in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).
Last year, the Department of Interior finalized the plan for conservation and leasing in the
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National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. This plan was based on sound scientific research that
analyzed wildlife distribution and uses of the important habitat within the NPRA, as well as
subsistence use by numerous Native communities. The plan’s protective measures were
informed by over 400,000 comments from scientists, conservation groups, and Native
communities. The plan balances conservation and development interests, and allows for oil and
gas leasing on 11.8 million acres containing 72 percent of NPR-A’s economically recoverable oil.
This piece of the legislation would nullify the existing record of decision for the NPR-A integrated
activity plan (IAP), and environmental impact statement (EIS), and give the Secretary of the
Interior six months to come up with a new IAP/EIS that promotes “maximum development of oil
and gas resources.” The new IAP/EIS would be required to select one of the alternatives
analyzed but not selected in the 2012 EIS, any of which would result in an additional loss of 2033% of high-value caribou calving habitat. In other words, it seeks to legislate the EIS’s outcome.
Our shared public lands are important economic generators for local communities as people come from
all over the country to camp, hike, hunt and fish on these lands. This legislation turns away from this
tradition, instead choosing to throw open the doors to oil and gas development above all else—with few
safeguards for local communities. Recent reports by the Government Accountability Office and others
have confirmed that inspection and enforcement rates are at an all-time low, and have questioned
whether the government can truly guarantee that public health and safety are being protected. At a
time when oil and gas production is rising across the country, the industry is sitting on thousands of
unused drilling permits, and when Americans need real solutions not stale ideas, this legislation does not
make sense. We strongly urge a NO vote on H.R. 4899.
Thank you,
Chase Huntley
Senior Director, Government Relations, Energy
The Wilderness Society