Position on S. 4753, Energy Permitting Reform Act

National parks do not exist in isolation and what happens outside their borders can have adverse effects on the parks and their connected landscapes. While energy development is prohibited inside most national parks, development on public lands adjacent to national parks can disrupt visitors and cause harm to the parks as well as the waters, air and wildlife that pass through them. Congress has repeatedly confirmed through the establishment of national parks and the creation of national monuments, what many across the country believe: there are places so naturally or culturally significant that they are worthy of protection from harm for the benefit of all Americans today and future generations to come. This promise has sometimes been tested, stretched and broken for energy and mineral development.

Eighty national parks share a boundary with Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. NPCA believes in the BLM’s multiple-use mandate, which allows for the balancing of recreation, conservation, energy and other needs on our public lands. Any use of public lands for energy development must be done in an environmentally responsible way that avoids and mitigates the effects on natural and cultural resources, Tribes and communities. Energy development on federal lands can help local communities, create jobs, and provide resources for our national and global economies, clean energy to mitigate climate pollution, and funding for further conservation of lands and waters. However, these same developments can also pollute our air and water, harm essential wildlife and habitat, drain local economies, deplete reservoirs, and disrupt thriving outdoor recreation economies. This tension between uses is as old as our public lands themselves and we must work to ensure that the federal government prioritizes its promise to ensure these lands are well protected. It is our hope that the members of this committee can agree that there are some places that are too special to develop and that some guardrails for development are necessary to reduce harm as much as possible for our special places and local communities.

We appreciate the following provisions in the bill that strike a balance.

This bill would make meaningful improvements to unlock clean energy projects and build out a stronger power grid. National parks would benefit significantly from such advancements. Well-planned transmission, as the bill recognizes, would help prevent blackouts amid more extreme weather, ensuring that services remain stable and resilient. With national parks facing growing disruptions and destruction from a rapidly changing climate and more extreme weather, NPCA fully understands the importance of developing more renewable energy resources and the transmission network to bring this clean energy to communities across the country. Over the past decade, a growing number of renewable energy projects have been waiting to connect and provide clean power to the electric grid.

NPCA is glad to see the bill includes common-sense reforms to electrical transmission permitting. We are also happy to see the inclusion of reforms for geothermal energy permitting on public lands. Geothermal energy could provide the United States with clean baseload power and provide jobs for workers transitioning out of the oil and gas industry. We are also pleased to see the sections on wind energy production including yearly offshore lease sales – with acreage requirements – as well as gigawatt (GW) production goals both onshore and offshore.

Unfortunately, there are some provisions that are not necessary for meaningful, permitting improvements.

This includes the new, much shorter timelines for judicial review. Also, the additional categorical exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are problematic as they could result in less science and planning for projects. Lastly, the creation of tighter deadlines for agencies to complete the permitting process comes without increased capacity or funds. The Department of the Interior and its land management agencies have been consistently underfunded and understaffed. Shortening their deadlines without fixing those issues would lead to a rushed permitting process and limited public engagement. The committee must find a way to reconcile these facts.

Below are the provisions that NPCA would recommend be removed, altered, amended or added to ensure that our national parks, monuments and other special places are sufficiently protected from unintended consequences of permitting reform.

Sec. 101 Accelerating Claims – This section would shorten the timeline to file a civil suit for judicial review of an agency action to 150 days. This is a significant change from the current 6-year timeline and could harm the ability of individuals, Tribes and others to seek relief from projects that may have adverse effects on them and their communities. If the timeline must be shortened, as some believe, a more reasonable 2 or 3 years would be a less drastic change that would help accelerate projects while still offering adequate access for redress.

Sec. 201 Onshore oil and gas leasing – Section 201(a) as written could be problematic for the deployment of renewable energy on public lands. According to the BLM, the changes would make it nearly impossible for them to reach the quotas from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for onshore oil and gas leasing that would allow them to offer Rights of Way for wind and solar. We believe that the BLM is working in good faith to follow the IRA and current law is more than sufficient. This section must be amended or removed to ensure that public lands can be used for part of the clean energy transition that would help lead to American energy independence.

Sec. 203 Onshore oil and gas leasing – Section 203(e) would exempt lands under this section from federal bonding requirements. This could lead to the cost of cleaning up spent oil and gas wells to the taxpayers of the states where the wells sit. Section 203(e) should be removed from this bill to ensure that oil and gas developers clean up after themselves.

Sec. 208 Geothermal leasing and permitting improvements – This section would bring the permitting of geothermal energy projects more aligned with other types of energy development on public lands. The requirements for annual geothermal lease sales, providing agencies cost recovery and providing geothermal development exclusions that the oil and gas industry currently benefits from are all huge improvements for this clean energy source. This section would be vastly improved by amending it to reaffirm the protections for national park resources in Sec. 28 of the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970.

Sec. 210 Hardrock mining mill sites – This section creates a new framework for millsite claims for hardrock mining companies to site waste disposal and other ancillary uses on public lands adjacent to their mining claims. While this language does not alleviate NPCA’s overall concern with the problems and inadequacies of the claim system under the Mining Law of 1872, we believe that the committee worked admirably to thread a needle to solve the problems faced by the mining industry following the Rosemont decision. We are particularly grateful that this section would require that activities can only occur on these millsite claims pending approval of a mine plan of operations. We are also heartened to see the inclusion of subsection (b), which would direct excess claim fee revenue from these millsite claims to the hardrock abandoned mine land reclamation fund. We hope the committee will expand this provision to include all excess revenue from annual mine claim fees. We look forward to working with the committee to clarify some of the provisions in this section in the forthcoming committee report.

Sec. 302 Offshore wind energy – Section 302©(2) establishes an initial gigawatt (GW) goal for offshore wind of 30GW with a requirement for “periodic” updates to that goal. While this goal is a good step forward, there is no exact timeline for when updates should occur, nor does it preclude an update from lowering the GW goal. This section should be amended to give a timeframe for how often the goal should be updated, such as not less than every ten years, and it should include language requiring that the GW goal should not be lowered.

Title 4 Electric Transmission – Section 401© ensures that states and Tribes are consulted during the siting phases for transmission facilities within their jurisdictions. This is an excellent way to allow buy in from the relevant authorities and allow their voices to be heard. To prevent future conflict, this section should be amended to require FERC to consult with the relevant land management agencies, such as the National Park Service (NPS). By working with the land management agencies during the consulting phases, FERC would be made aware of problem areas to be avoided at an earlier time and would be able to resolve them with the other agencies in a timelier manner.

Section 402 sets up a rulemaking on interregional transmission planning. We believe that both the rulemaking process as well as the requirements for the subsequent rule that would be produced should include consultation with the land management agencies. This will allow NPS and other agencies to be involved in promulgating the rule to help avoid conflict with the landscapes they protect.

Any permitting that would sufficiently protect our parks must include:

• Explicit protections for national parks, monuments and other federally protected lands and the laws that govern these protections;
• Greater consideration of conserved lands and natural and cultural resources, including protected viewsheds, at the earliest possible point of all permitting decisions from land management agencies;
• More dedicated funding for the land management agencies to ensure they can retain a professional and highly capable staff to process permitting applications;
• Educational pathways for federal jobs to compete with private sector jobs in energy and mineral development;
• Full cost recovery from developers for all permitting agencies on public lands; and
• More agency discretion for directing hardrock mineral exploration away from sensitive areas and toward more compatible landscapes.

NPCA looks forward to working with Senator Manchin, Senator Barrasso, and Committee members to ensure any permitting agreement sent to the President’s desk includes very specific commitments to ensuring that the development within the scope of the bill proceeds without further conflicts with our most special places.