Reconciliation and Public Lands Part 2

Final legislation is narrower than House bill, focused on fossil fuel leasing on federal lands.

As a (belated) follow-up from my post this summer about the House version of the reconciliation bill, here is a summary of the key public lands provisions of the reconciliation bill as finally enacted.

In general, the scope of what is covered is substantially less than what was in the House bill, in part because provisions were stripped out by the Senate Parliamentarian.  In particular, all of the “pay to play” provisions to facilitate greater oil and gas development, or to eliminate judicial review of NEPA reviews, are gone.  And as with the House bill, almost all the provisions relate to oil and gas leasing.  Finally, consistent with ping-pong governance, many provisions specifically repeal provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) or try to constrain or prevent executive action to reduce fossil fuel leasing by future Administrations.

The law repeals royalty rate increases from the IRA for onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing (Sections 50101(a) and 50102(d)), and reduces royalty rates for coal leasing (50202).

It mandates quarterly lease sales of federal lands open for oil and gas development; those sales must offer at least half of any nominated parcels; and all nominated parcels must be offered for leasing within 18 months of nomination.  (Sections 50101(b), (c) & (d))  (Nomination is the process by which industry identifies areas of federal land for leasing.)  It also mandates at least 30 offshore oil and gas leases outside of Alaska through 2040, 6 offshore oil and gas leases in Alaska through 2032 (Section 50102(a)), and minimum lease sales in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve in northern Alaska (Sections 50104 and 50105).  It also prevents imposition of additional terms and conditions on those leases other than those in specified past lease sales.  (This is an attempt to prevent a future Administration from proposing leases, but imposing onerous terms and conditions on those leases so that they aren’t viable for bidders.)

Similarly, the law requires coal lease sales for all pending applications (Section 50201).

The law does have a few non-fossil fuel provisions.  The law requires a minimum rate of timber sales from the National Forest system as a whole, and from BLM lands (Section 50301).  (It does require all sales to be consistent with the timber sale amounts identified in land management plans, though in practice actual sales have been below those levels for years.)

Lastly, the law imposes a per-acre fee for renewable projects on federal lands, as well as charging a royalty based on electricity production by those facilities.  (Section 50302)

2025 Reconciliation Bill, ANWR, BLM, national forests, oil and gas, oil and gas leasing, public lands