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Draft energy bill includes offshore inventory requirement
The Associated Press and Petroleum News
Republican leaders have added a provision to the draft energy bill requiring an inventory of oil and gas reserves in U.S. coastal waters, drawing strong criticism from several lawmakers who worry it’s a maneuver to eventually lift the drilling ban in effect in most coastal areas.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the energy talks, argued the inventory is needed to get accurate numbers of how much oil and gas is available. He dismissed fears the inventory study would lead to actual exploration and drilling.
However, an industry advisory group, the National Petroleum Council, recommends in a new report an end to the freeze on natural gas drilling in selected areas by 2005.
Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., who is not part of the House-Senate conference committee, said the decision to include the inventory was “an outrage” because the provision was removed from energy bills that passed the House and was not in the Senate version of the bill that went to the conference committee several weeks ago. Provision added in private The provision was inserted into the committee’s draft bill by Domenici and Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, who is leading the House Republican delegation on the committee. Domenici and Tauzin are drafting the conference committee bill behind closed doors, later releasing the provisions to the public. The leaders hope to finish writing the bill by Oct. 3.
The GOP leaders released news of the offshore inventory provision Sept. 23.
It didn’t take long for the protests to start. The next day a bipartisan group of senators including Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., wrote Tauzin demanding that the inventory provision be deleted from the energy legislation.
More than 100 lawmakers recently signed a letter urging conferees not to include the inventory language in the bill. Democrats, who have been complaining about being left out of the energy bill negotiations, strongly oppose the inventory. Closed-door sessions unpopular But Republicans also are starting to grumble about the closed-door sessions.
Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, R-N.Y., Science Committee chairman and a member of the House negotiating team on the energy bill, told the Washington Post his staff was not actively participating in drafting the provisions on items that fall under his panel’s jurisdiction.
“We’re being told we have to accept on faith what they’re going to produce, but I always say, ‘Trust but verify,’” Boehlert told the Post. He said he plans to meet with Tauzin to “tell him I’m hoping for more give-and-take.”
Democrats say utility, gas and oil lobbyists are writing key parts of the bill. Republicans have told Democratic aides, for example, that there will be a major rewrite of existing laws covering underground gasoline storage tanks. Gasoline retailers and the American Petroleum Institute have been heavily lobbying on the issue, according to the Washington Post. Provisions aim to boost development To spur oil and gas development, the most recent provisions of the Republican version of the draft energy bill would:
• Provide royalty payment relief for natural gas taken from very deep areas of the western and central Gulf of Mexico.
• Streamline the permitting process to allow for quicker development of natural gas in the Rocky Mountain area. The provisions are intended to improve access to federal lands by requiring the Interior Department to ensure improved permitting and enforcement of oil and gas leases, and to identify federal impediments to production.
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