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HYDE-SMITH BACKS RESOLUTION OVERTURNING BIDEN RULE TO SHUT DOWN SMALL OIL & GAS PRODUCERS
Cosponsors Resolution to Stop BLM Rule Imposing Crushing Lease Bonds on Producers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) today joined an effort to overturn a new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule that accelerates the Biden administration’s assault on the U.S. oil and gas industry.
Hyde-Smith, who serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, cosponsored a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval offered by U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-Mont.) to crush the BLM rule, Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process. The final rule is expected to cause major harm to small, independent oil and gas producers.
“The Biden administration’s unrelenting assault on the American oil and gas industry completely ignores the economic realities of how its draconian rules harm U.S. energy security, shuts down independent producers, and kills jobs in rural communities,” Hyde-Smith said. “This BLM rule deserves to be stopped—and fast.”
“Joe Biden set out on an anti-American energy war path on Day One, and ever since Montana’s small oil and gas producers have been a target. This new BLM rule will drive producers out of business, raise costs for Montana families, and force the U.S. to run to our adversaries to meet our energy needs. It must be reversed,” Daines said.
This new rule would significantly raise royalties, rates, minimum bids, costs and bonding requirements for oil and gas producers on federal lands, which threatens to make it virtually impossible for small energy producers to continue to operate. The rule, for instance, increases the minimum lease bond to $150,000 per well (previously $10,000) and the minimum statewide bond to $500,000 (previously $25,000).
U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Dan Sullivan (R-Ala.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also joined Daines and Hyde-Smith in introducing the resolution.
In December, Hyde-Smith cosponsored the Supporting Made in America Energy (SMART) Act (S.3445), which would require the U.S. Department of the Interior to issue four onshore oil and gas lease sales and two offshore oil and gas lease sales in each available area in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. It would also prohibit the President from pausing, canceling, delaying, deferring, or otherwise impeding the federal energy mineral leasing process through executive order or administrative procedure.
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