3.0.0 722 2026-05-04T18:11:14Z 2026-05-04T18:11:14Z Senate S S 2025-02-25 119 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/722 sseg00 Energy and Natural Resources Committee Senate Standing Referred To 2025-02-25T19:43:10Z 2025-02-25 sseg00 Energy and Natural Resources Committee Senate Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. IntroReferral 2025-02-25 Introduced in Senate IntroReferral 10000 9 Library of Congress H001061 Sen. Hoeven, John [R-ND] John Hoeven R ND N B001261 Sen. Barrasso, John [R-WY] John Barrasso R WY 2025-02-25 True C001096 Sen. Cramer, Kevin [R-ND] Kevin Cramer R ND 2025-02-25 True D000618 Sen. Daines, Steve [R-MT] Steve Daines R MT 2025-02-25 True Energy Energy 2025-03-21T17:43:13Z 00 2025-02-25 Introduced in Senate 2026-05-04T18:03:22Z Bureau of Land Management Mineral Spacing Act

This bill exempts certain exploration and production activities from federal oil and gas drilling permit requirements. Generally, the exemption applies to activities on land with (1) a surface estate that the federal government does not own, and (2) an underlying mineral estate only partially owned by the federal government. It does not apply to tribal lands.

Specifically, the bill bans the Department of the Interior from requiring a permit under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA) when

  • the federal government does not own or lease the surface estate, and it owns less than 50% of the mineral estate;
  • a well is located on nonfederal land overlying a nonfederal mineral estate, but some portion of the wellbore (i.e., drilled hole) enters and produces oil and gas from the federal mineral estate subject to the lease; or
  • a well is located on nonfederal land overlying a nonfederal mineral estate, but some portion of the wellbore traverses but does not produce oil or gas from the federal mineral estate subject to the lease.

The bill also specifies that, in the case of an oil and gas lease on such land, the MLA does not authorize Interior to require a bond to protect nonfederal land, impose mitigation requirements, require approval for surface reclamation, or enter nonfederal land without consent of the landowner. However, lessees of federal mineral estates must authorize Interior to enter nonfederal land for inspection and enforcement of the terms of the federal lease.

]]> Bureau of Land Management Mineral Spacing Act Display Title 45 Bureau of Land Management Mineral Spacing Act 2025-03-21T04:38:25Z Short Title(s) as Introduced 101 Bureau of Land Management Mineral Spacing Act 2025-03-21T04:38:22Z Introduced in Senate IS Official Title as Introduced 6 A bill to streamline the oil and gas permitting process and to recognize fee ownership for certain oil and gas drilling or spacing units, and for other purposes. 2025-03-21T04:34:06Z Introduced in Senate IS Introduced in Senate 2025-02-25T05:00:00Z https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s722is/xml/BILLS-119s722is.xml 2025-02-25 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 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. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress This file contains bill summaries and statuses for federal legislation. A bill summary describes the most significant provisions of a piece of legislation and details the effects the legislative text may have on current law and federal programs. Bill summaries are authored by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) of the Library of Congress. As stated in Public Law 91-510 (2 USC 166 (d)(6)), one of the duties of CRS is "to prepare summaries and digests of bills and resolutions of a public general nature introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives". For more information, refer to the User Guide that accompanies this file.