May 5, 2023 |
Photo – Wyoming Senator John Barrasso – Bigfoot99 file photo
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso joined West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Capito in introducing separate bills Thursday, intended to break down White House barriers to domestic energy production.
Barrasso’s SPUR Act is designed to reform the painful permitting process for domestic energy and mineral resources on federal lands by streamlining complicated procedures. The legislation also would force the Interior Department to resume quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales, and lift the Obama-era leasing moratorium on thermal coal.
Also known as “steam coal”, thermal coal is used in electric power production after it is ground into a fine powder so that burns quickly at high heat. Thermal coal is used in power plants to heat water in boilers that run steam turbines.
Senator Barrasso’s bill also would allow uranium to be designated a critical mineral.
Capito’s bill includes provisions to streamline convoluted review processes with enforceable timelines designed to prevent trivial legal challenges.
The Republican Senator from West Virginia is a ranking member of the Environmental Public Works Committee. Capito’s bill would modify the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act to prevent “projects from being unreasonably blocked”. It also bars federal bureaucrats from including the social cost of greenhouse gases in its analysis “if the use of the metrics increases the cost of energy or causes agency delays.”
Both bills are designed to accelerate the approval process for major energy infrastructure projects at a time when the United States is falling behind both China and Russia in bringing large viable projects online.
Yesterday’s introduction of the two bills designed to open up domestic energy production, follow a bill Barrasso introduced on Wednesday that would require the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw a bill introduced by former eco-warrior, now BLM Director Tracy Stone Manning, that places conservation on equal footing with energy development, recreation and other uses of bureau lands.
