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On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management released a proposed oil and gas rule that would affect how fossil fuels are leased and produced on national public lands. The rule would implement the Inflation Reduction Act’s reforms of the oil and gas leasing system, providing taxpayers with a fair return when public lands are leased to private companies. The proposed rule would also cut down on rampant speculative leasing in the onshore program so that those lands can instead be managed for other uses like conservation and recreation. Finally, the rule would reform the bonding rates that oil and gas companies must post in order to ensure public lands are cleaned up when companies abandon wells—a provision that was removed from the Inflation Reduction Act by the Senate parliamentarian.
"Congress overhauled the oil and gas leasing system last year. Now it’s up to the Interior Department to make those reforms stick and prevent them from being undermined by future administrations," Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby said in a statement. "Today’s draft rule is a major step in that direction."
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It's imperative that strong bonding reforms make it through the rulemaking process intact. The Interior Department just announced it will spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars cleaning up oil and gas wells abandoned by irresponsible companies. This can never happen again.”
