Freshman Congressman Harriet Hageman introduced the companion bill to a doomed bill introduced in the Senate by Cynthia Lummis, which provides:
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 543
To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 28, 2021
Ms. Herrell (for herself, Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Scalise, Mr. Westerman, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Moore of Utah, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Young, Mr. Owens, Mr. McKinley, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Brady, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Lamborn, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Roy, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr. Reschenthaler, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Bice of Oklahoma, Mr. Baird, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Rosendale, Mr. Hern, Mrs. Boebert, and Mr. Amodei) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To prohibit the President from issuing moratoria on leasing and permitting energy and minerals on certain Federal land, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Protecting Our Wealth of Energy Resources Act” or the “POWER Act”.
SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON MORATORIA OF NEW ENERGY LEASES ON CERTAIN FEDERAL LAND AND ON WITHDRAWAL OF FEDERAL LAND FROM ENERGY DEVELOPMENT.
(a) Definitions.—In this section:
(1) CRITICAL MINERAL.—The term “critical mineral” means any mineral included on the list of critical minerals published in the notice of the Secretary of the Interior entitled “Final List of Critical Minerals 2018” (83 Fed. Reg. 23295 (May 18, 2018)).
(2) FEDERAL LAND.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term “Federal land” means—
(i) National Forest System land;
(ii) public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702));
(iii) the outer Continental Shelf (as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331)); and
(iv) land managed by the Secretary of Energy.
(B) INCLUSION.—The term “Federal land” includes land described in clauses (i) through (iv) of subparagraph (A) for which the rights to the surface estate or subsurface estate are owned by a non-Federal entity.
(3) PRESIDENT.—The term “President” means the President or any designee, including—
(A) the Secretary of Agriculture;
(B) the Secretary of Energy; and
(C) the Secretary of the Interior.
(b) Prohibitions.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not carry out any action that would prohibit or substantially delay the issuance of any of the following on Federal land, unless such an action has been authorized by an Act of Congress:
(A) New oil and gas leases, drill permits, approvals, or authorizations.
(B) New coal leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.
(C) New hard rock leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.
(D) New critical minerals leases, permits, approvals, or authorizations.
(2) PROHIBITION ON WITHDRAWAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the President shall not withdraw any Federal land from forms of entry, appropriation, or disposal under the public land laws, location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, or disposition under laws pertaining to mineral and geothermal leasing or mineral materials unless the withdrawal has been authorized by an Act of Congress.
1. Can't pass the Senate
2. Would be vetoed if it actually passed both houses, when there's certainly not enough votes to override a veto.
So why do these things?
February 20, 2023
Golden moves on path to all-electric in new buildings: To meet its #climate goals, this #Colorado city of 20,000 needs to crimp #methane combustion. It could require all-electric in new buildings by January 2024
February 23, 2023
SNAP, the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, ends this month.
NPR is laying off 10% of its workforce.
March 3, 2023
A Gold and Copper mine will open in Laramie County in 2025.
The United States Post Office is buying 9,250 electric vans from Ford.
March 13, 2023
Silicon Valley Bank collapsed Friday after a comment by a major investment broker regarding it. The Federal Government is not going to "bail out" the bank, which has accounts by many wealthy investors.
President Biden is proceeding to authorize the Willow drilling project inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, despite protests over the proposed action.
March 28, 2023
Renewables produced more energy than coal last year.
Coal checked in at 20%, down from 50% in 2007, and it's declining.
This is no surprise here, we've noted the timeline of coal long ago:
Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry
Fly Casper Alliance lobbies for city subsidy.
A new Natrona County Advocacy Group, Fly Casper Alliance, is seeking $50,000 from the City of Casper to help secure the present Delta (Sky West) flight to Salt Lake City. The flight already receives subsidies from Natrona County, but this one time payment is hoped to help continue to secure the flight.
Related thread:
Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport
May 10, 2023
The big economic news right now, of course, is that the country is racing towards its debt limit, at which point it will default on its debts.
The whole idea of a debt limit was to put a cap on Congress' ability to borrow too much money. The problem is it didn't work out that way. Sort of like a spending limit on a credit card, it just caps off the debt, but the problem is, unlike a credit card, when you go to present it to the person you are buying something from, your credit isn't declined. You get the thing anyway, and then later just don't have the ability to pay for it.
So it works instead, like buying a house, for example, or a car, you couldn't afford.
In order to really have teeth, there'd have to be a third body, like the CBO, treasury, or something, that would just nullify bills authorizing spending over the limit. Or, rather, a court would have to declare, before things were spent, that there was a freeze on spending as Congress didn't have the statutory authority to make the spending.
A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, frankly, would work significantly better.
It does serve to cause the spending entities to have to get together, but they don't do it honestly. Basically what we have going on is something akin to a couple at a banquet who have overspent arguing whether they should take the Bud Light off the table, while they're leaving the Dom Pérignon on. Or, rather, it's like a husband that has a job as Mini Mart clerks, but the education of PhDs, arguing about racking up bills rather than going out and getting a better paying job.
If we don't get this fixed by June 1, the country is going into a massive economic crisis.
To add to that grim situation, the negotiations are in the hands of 1) one politician who is so old that he can recall when he went to U.S. Grant's kindergarten recitals, and 2) one politician who is so beholding to Trumpist "Club For Growth" Kool-Aid drinkers that he stinks up a room before he gets there.
If you worked at a company run this way, you'd look for a new job. If you lived in a family run this way, you'd be looking for your own apartment.
This also serves, we might note, to recall the Jeffersonian warnings about democracy (and yes, we are a democracy, don't give me that "but we're a republic" crap, which is just what that line is, crap). Jefferson warned that once the country ceased to be agrarian, the government would fail, as at that point it gave rise to feeding the mob.
The history of modern democracies has so far demonstrated that fear to be wrong, but it has also taken real crises in order to address largess. The German democracy, for instance, beat up by the hyperinflation of Weimar era and the brutality of World War Two keeps a tight reign on its finances. The Japanese democracy, hit hard by the Japanese decline of the 1970s, does the same.
So far, the American democracy has shown no such tendency. Congress won't address entitlements, which it must, won't address gigantic defense spending, which it must, and won't address raising taxes, which it must.
In that context, again, it's like a couple employed as Mini Mart clerks, both with PhD's, who are standing outside their apartment yelling each at each other about whether to upgrade the stereo on the Tesla they can't afford.
May 13, 2023
Mining sector jobs grew more than any other sector of Wyoming's economy last year, by 9.1%. This in spite of dire warnings by, well, folks like me.
UW's employees will be receiving a pay raise.
Ford Motors will no longer put AM radio in its vehicles. Any of them. Many other manufacturers are pulling theirs from electric vehicles.
May 15, 2023
Trump apparently said in his Town Hall on CNN that unless the Administration agreed to major cuts, the Republicans should take the country into debt default, a totally wreckless position that would destroy the savings of his constituency.
Trump himself was responsible for major additions to the deficit.
Biden and the Republicans are set to meet again on Tuesday. Perhaps this slow motion process is part of his strategy, but its yet another example of government that is as slow as molasses.
May 16, 2023
The local paper is eliminating an edition, going to three print editions per week only and wiping out personal home delivery in favor of mail.
May 21, 2023
Nothing is being done about the debt ceiling while President Biden is at the G7. He gets back today.
If the US ends up with Trump again, this sort of behavior will be a lot of the reason why.
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