The U.S. House on Wednesday is to consider H.R. 2728, the Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, and Business Council of Alabama members are encouraged to contact their House members asking them to support the bill.
The National Association of Manufacturers, which the BCA is the sole representative of in Alabama, also supports the legislation. The bill would prohibit the Department of Interior from enforcing federal regulations, guidance or permit requirement regarding oil, gas, and geothermal production activities, the NAM said.
This includes hydraulic fracturing on or under federal lands in all 50 states regardless if a state already has a regulatory structure in place that oversees such activities. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses high-pressure, underground liquid injection to move oil, natural gas, geothermal energy, and even water, into position for easy extraction.
“Congress needs to hear a united message from manufacturers in support of this key energy development and production legislation,” the NAM said.
Click here to email your Representative in support of H.R. 2728, Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, when it comes for a vote.
In September, the BCA signed a multi-state organization letter urging EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to allow states to conduct their own hydraulic fracturing energy development policies. The letter initiated by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Council was signed by BCA President and CEO William J. Canary and 16 other state chambers of commerce or their equivalent.
The signatories represent organizations reinforcing a request that the EPA continue to allow states to regulate their own energy development efforts including horizontal drilling. “We have all seen the benefits of the increase in oil and natural gas supply due to the growth of this unconventional development,” the letter states.
The combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling has unleashed an energy revolution rarely seen in America, making us the largest oil and natural gas producer in the world today, the NAM said. H.R. 2728 requires that rather than force an unnecessary, one-size-fits-all federal regulatory regime on top of carefully tailored state-designed programs, the Bureau of Land Management instead must defer to existing state regulations related to oil, gas and geothermal development, the HAM said. In states with existing regulations, guidance or permitting requirements, the bill says that the federal rule will not be enforced.
-Dana Beyerle