113 HR 5844 IH: Protect Our Public Lands Act U.S. House of Representatives 2014-12-10 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

I 113th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 5844 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES December 10, 2014 Mr. Pocan (for himself and Ms. Schakowsky) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources A BILL To ban hydraulic fracturing on land owned by the United States and leased to a third party, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Protect Our Public Lands Act.

2.

Prohibiting hydraulic fracturing under Federal leases

The Mineral Leasing Act is amended by inserting after section 37 (30 U.S.C. 193) the following:

38.

No hydraulic fracturing on leased land

(a)

In general

Any lease issued, renewed, or readjusted under this Act shall prohibit the lessee from conducting any activity under the lease for the purpose of hydraulic fracturing. (b)

Definition of hydraulic fracturing

In this section, the term hydrauling fracturing means an operation conducted in an individual wellbore designed to increase the flow of hydrocarbons from a rock formation to the wellbore through modifying the permeability of reservoir rock by fracturing it, except that such term does not include enhanced secondary recovery, including water flooding, tertiary recovery, and other types of well stimulation operations.

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3.

Application

The amendment made by section 2 shall not apply to a lease in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act until the renewal or adjustment of the lease.