I 112th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1115 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES March 16, 2011 Mr. Flores (for himself, Mr. Landry, Mr. Duncan of South Carolina, Mr. Gohmert, and Mr. Canseco) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources A BILL To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to establish a deadline and other requirements for issuance of drilling permits under that Act, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Expedited Offshore Permitting Act of 2011.

2.

Deadline and other requirements for issuance of Outer Continental Shelf drilling permits

Section 11(d) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1340) is amended by inserting (1) after (d), and by adding at the end the following: (2)(A)The Secretary shall approve or disapprove any application for a permit for drilling a well under an approved exploration or development plan for an oil and gas lease, or any application to amend a previously approved permit under such a lease, within 30 days after its submission, except that the Secretary may disapprove such application only upon a determination that— (i)any proposed activity under the permit would result in any condition described in section 5(a)(2)(A)(i); and (ii)such proposed activity cannot be modified to avoid such condition. (B)The Secretary may request additional information from the applicant prior to approving or disapproving such application, but the request for additional information must be received by the applicant within 30 days after submission of the application to the Secretary. Upon receipt of the additional information requested by the Secretary, the Secretary shall approve or disapprove the application within 15 days in accordance with this subsection. (C)If the Secretary disapproves a permit application or an amended permit application pursuant to this subsection, and there is no other well on areas subject to the applicable leases capable of production in paying quantities, within 90 days after receipt of a final disapproval decision all record title holders of any of the applicable leases may request cancellation of the lease, and within 60 days after receipt of such cancellation request the Secretary shall pay to the record title holders the amount of any bonus bid paid for such lease plus interest from the date or dates that the bonus bids were paid by the record title holders. The Secretary shall make such payment from amounts that otherwise would be credited to miscellaneous receipts pursuant to section 9. .