Moments after his election as House Speaker on Friday, Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, wasted no time in highlighting energy as one of his top priorities. He said the Republican Congress would expand oil and gas drilling, end federal support for electric vehicles and promote the export of American gas.
“We have to stop the attacks on liquefied natural gas, pass legislation to eliminate the Green New Deal,” he said in a floor speech after accepting the gavel. “We’re going to expedite new drilling permits, we’re going to save the jobs of our auto manufacturers, and we’re going to do that by ending the ridiculous E.V. mandates.”
The Green New Deal to which Mr. Johnson referred was proposed legislation that Congress never passed but that Republicans have seized on as shorthand for policies designed to help the United States transition away from fossil fuels, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet. Likewise, there is no mandate that requires Americans to buy electric vehicles. Instead, there are federal subsidies to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles and new regulations designed to cut tailpipe pollution and get automakers to sell more E.V.s.
Still, Mr. Johnson was clearly signaling that energy policy would be on the front burner. “It is our duty to restore America’s energy dominance and that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
The United States is already the world’s biggest producer of crude oil as well as the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
House Republicans on Friday also made it easier for Congress to give away federal lands to state and local governments, a move that conservation groups warned could lead to Americans losing access to parks and other protected areas.
The measure essentially renders public lands as having no monetary value by directing the federal government not to consider lost revenues when it transfers land to a state, tribe or municipality.
While the same provision has been in effect when Republicans controlled Congress in the past, activists worry that under the Trump administration it will result in a sell-off of public lands.
Mr. Trump has promised to expand oil and gas drilling and mining, a goal shared by Republicans who now control both the House and Senate. Environmental groups said they feared the measure approved Friday could open the door to new efforts to liquidate public lands. States often lack the resources to adequately maintain natural areas, they argue, and are more likely to sell formerly federal lands to mining and drilling companies or other private development.
“If those lands get sold off, given to states, you’re going to see large privatization,” said Michael Carroll, the public lands campaign director for the Wilderness Society, an environmental group.
“You’re going to see loss of access and large-scale development,” he said, adding that states would “keep the best and sell off the rest.”
Republicans have long argued that the federal government controls too much land, particularly in 11 Western states, and that states are better stewards because they are more responsive to local communities.
“The federal government is facing significant maintenance backlogs in our national parks and federal lands, as well as the threat of catastrophic wildfires due to lack of forest management,” Representative Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who leads the House Committee on Natural Resources, said in a statement. “I look forward to working in the new Congress and with President Trump to solve these problems and properly steward America’s rich federal lands.”
Many Republicans also have battled President Biden’s environmental policies, which include protecting more than 26 million acres of land and waters as part of a plan, known as 30×30, to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by the end of this decade. One particularly contentious decision was a move to give equal weight to conservation when deciding on uses — like grazing, mining and logging — for public land. The Biden administration has said it was to trying to strike a balance between commercial activities and conservation efforts. Overall the federal government manages more than 600 million acres throughout the country, the majority of it in Western states and Alaska, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade group that represents oil and gas companies that drill on federal land in the West, said she believed the provision makes sense. While public lands may have value, the government also pays a cost to maintain them, she said.
She accused environmental groups of fearmongering, and said most federal transfers of land are “small potatoes,” like easements or other inconsequential areas of land.
“We’re not talking about transferring Canyonlands National Park to the state,” Ms. Sgamma said, adding something that vast and iconic would be “a really ridiculous leap from this rule change to that kind of outcome.”
Democratic lawmakers accused Republicans of declaring open-season on public lands.
“Never to be accused of subtlety, House Republicans are making clear on Day 1 of the new Congress that they are ready to drive Trump’s drill-baby-drill agenda by making it quicker and easier to sell off America’s public lands to the highest bidder,” Representative Raúl Grijalva, Democrat of New Mexico, said in a statement.
House Republicans instituted a similar rule when they controlled the chamber in 2017 and again in 2023. But Congress still must approve any transfer of federal land. In 2017, Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, introduced legislation that would have given 3 million acres of federal land in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming to states.
It prompted a backlash from local communities, including hunters and anglers who worried the change would limit access to recreational activities. Mr. Chaffetz withdrew the bill.
Public lands create revenue for the United States Treasury, which collects fees from drilling, mining and grazing as well as renewable energy development and other activities. That money helps pay for maintenance, firefighting and other needs.
Under the previous House rules, the Congressional Budget Office was required to calculate the costs to taxpayers of any legislation that would transfer public lands to state, local and tribal entities. The new Republican rule waives this requirement. That means a transfer of public lands and waterways would not include an estimate of the cost to taxpayers, which would have to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere under separate House rules.
The post House Republicans Pledge Drilling and Make It Easier to Shed Federal Land appeared first on New York Times.
