Steven Holt: “The bill before us tonight would elevate energy production above all other uses of public lands in, really…”

“The bill before us tonight would elevate energy production above all other uses of public lands in, really, contradiction of the principles of multiple use under the Federal Land Management and Policy Act. This would be to the detriment of grazing, hunting, fishing, and other recreation activities. Yet the plan envisioned by the majority's bill does not even require that the Interior Department consider the tens of millions of acres of public lands that oil companies are just sitting on and not using. Right now, oil companies have roughly 25 million acres of public land onshore on which they are not producing oil. Even worse, oil companies are not even beginning drilling activities on the vast majority of these nonproducing areas. In fact, last month the Interior Department released a new report which found that oil companies have nearly 21 million acres onshore under lease on which they have not even begun conducting exploration activities. Well over half of the public lands that oil companies have under lease onshore are idle. They are warehousing these leases. They are sitting on these leases. My amendment would require that the Secretary reduce the number of nonproducing leases as part of the plan for energy development on public lands that would be established under the underlying bill. Before we risk disrupting additional public lands, let's begin by getting the oil and gas industry to use the leases they have.…”