[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                        EXAMINING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRA-
                        TION'S UNPRECEDENTED OBSTRUCTION.
                         OF THE BOEM OFFSHORE LEASING 
                                    PROGRAM

=======================================================================

                           OVERSIGHT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND
                           MINERAL RESOURCES

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                      Wednesday, October 18, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-67

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
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                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                     BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Chairman
                    DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Vice Chairman
                  RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Member

Doug Lamborn, CO			Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA			Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 	
Tom McClintock, CA			    CNMI
Paul Gosar, AZ				Jared Huffman, CA
Garret Graves, LA			Ruben Gallego, AZ
Aumua Amata C. Radewagen, AS		Joe Neguse, CO
Doug LaMalfa, CA			Mike Levin, CA
Daniel Webster, FL			Katie Porter, CA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR		Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Russ Fulcher, ID			Melanie A. Stansbury, NM
Pete Stauber, MN			Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
John R. Curtis, UT			Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY
Tom Tiffany, WI				Kevin Mullin, CA
Jerry Carl, AL				Val T. Hoyle, OR
Matt Rosendale, MT			Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Lauren Boebert, CO			Seth Magaziner, RI
Cliff Bentz, OR				Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Jen Kiggans, VA				Ed Case, HI
Jim Moylan, GU				Debbie Dingell, MI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX			Susie Lee, NV
Mike Collins, GA
Anna Paulina Luna, FL
John Duarte, CA
Harriet M. Hageman, WY


                    Vivian Moeglein, Staff Director
                      Tom Connally, Chief Counsel
                 Lora Snyder, Democratic Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES

                       PETE STAUBER, MN, Chairman
                     WESLEY P. HUNT, TX, Vice Chair
              ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, NY, Ranking Member

Doug Lamborn, CO                     Jared Huffman, CA
Robert J. Wittman, VA                Kevin Mullin, CA
Paul Gosar, AZ                       Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Garret Graves, LA                    Seth Magaziner, RI
Daniel Webster, FL                   Nydia M. Velazquez, NY
Russ Fulcher, ID                     Debbie Dingell, MI
John R. Curtis, UT                   Raul M. Grijalva, AZ
Tom Tiffany, WI                      Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Matt Rosendale, MT                   Susie Lee, NV
Lauren Boebert, CO                   Vacancy
Wesley P. Hunt, TX                   Vacancy
Mike Collins, GA
John Duarte, CA
Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio

                                ----------                                
                                 
                                CONTENTS

                                ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Wednesday, October 18, 2023......................     1

Statement of Members:
    Stauber, Hon. Pete, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Minnesota.........................................     1
    Ocasio-Cortez, Hon. Alexandria, a Representative in Congress 
      from the State of New York.................................     3
    Westerman, Hon. Bruce, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arkansas..........................................     4

Statement of Witnesses:
    Faucheux, Tommy, President, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and 
      Gas Association, Baton Rouge, Louisiana....................     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     7
    Moses, Jerry, Director of State and Federal Relations for 
      Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, Juneau, Alaska..............    10
        Prepared statement of....................................    11
    Seibel, Shane, Executive Director, Southern Ute Growth Fund, 
      Ignacio, Colorado..........................................    13
        Prepared statement of....................................    15

    Biven, Megan, Founder, True Transition, Vienna, Austria......    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    21
    Klein, Liz, Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 
      Washington, DC.............................................    31
        Prepared statement of....................................    32
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    34

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Graves

        ABC News, ``Largest wildfire in Louisiana was caused by 
          arson, state officials say''...........................    44

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Ocasio-Cortez

        True Transition--The Results of the American Oil & Gas 
          Worker Survey, March 2023..............................    39

        Vox.com, ``How Louisiana--one of the nation's wettest 
          states--caught on fire''...............................    48



 
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXAMINING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S UNPRECEDENTED.
            OBSTRUCTION OF THE BOEM OFFSHORE LEASING PROGRAM

                              ----------                              


                      Wednesday, October 18, 2023

                     U.S. House of Representatives

              Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in 
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Pete Stauber 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Stauber, Graves, Tiffany, 
Westerman, Ocasio-Cortez, and Kamlager-Dove.
    Also present: Representative Carl.

    Mr. Stauber. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the Subcommittee at any time.
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
hearings are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking Minority 
Member.
    I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Alabama, 
Mr. Carl, be allowed to participate in today's hearing.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    I now recognize myself for an opening statement.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETE STAUBER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Mr. Stauber. Today, the Energy and Mineral Resources 
Subcommittee will examine the Biden administration's 
unprecedented obstruction of the BOEM offshore leasing program.
    The last time Director Klein was here, we discussed the 
BOEM's budget and predicted that, while asking for a funding 
increase, they would manage to do less with it. Here we are, 6 
months later, and that prediction has come true. Today's 
hearing will focus on the proposed final National Outer 
Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, which has 
arrived 457 days late, and contains the fewest offshore lease 
sales in the program's history, just three potential sales over 
the next 5 years.
    Under the Biden administration's 5-year program, we will 
not have lease sales next year, and the earliest that a sale 
can occur is 2025, and there will not be a single sale in the 
great state of Alaska through 2029.
    Further, BOEM has previously communicated to this Committee 
that the NEPA process for these sales could take up to 2 years. 
As of today, BOEM has purposely not begun the NEPA process for 
the 2025 lease sales, putting them in jeopardy.
    We have seen the Biden administration's rationale for 
policy decisions like this play out with disastrous results. 
The magnitude of the global demand for oil and gas calls for 
something much more substantial than three lease sales. But 
instead of American energy dominance, this Administration would 
rather beg Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC countries 
for increased oil production. Just this week, the Wall Street 
Journal reported this Administration is pursuing a backroom 
deal with Venezuela to lift U.S. sanctions and pave the way for 
Venezuelan oil to hit the global markets. This Administration's 
energy policy is anywhere but America, any worker but American.
    It is the same policy for mining. BOEM's 5-year plan does 
not demonstrate a commitment to energy independence, nor does 
it balance environmental interests. In 1987, President Reagan 
put out a draft plan with 42 proposed sales, 17 of which were 
included in the final plan. That was a show of commitment.
    If BOEM truly wanted to show the United States is committed 
to more offshore production, they would assemble a forward-
looking strategy to streamline the burdensome permitting 
process; they would establish a regulatory framework that 
balances safety, environmental stewardship, and predictability, 
affording companies a clearer look; they would publish a 5-year 
plan with expanded leasing opportunities across historically 
utilized planning areas that incorporates pragmatic avenues for 
bolstering existing production, as well as more aggressive 
agenda for amplifying offshore output.
    Bottom line, an aggressive offshore leasing strategy would 
clearly demonstrate a true commitment to our nation's long-term 
energy security, and to the workers and their families who rely 
on a paycheck from the offshore industry.
    Director Klein, for your awareness, there are more than 
360,000 American workers who work in the offshore industry, and 
millions more who support the broader oil and gas industry. 
That kind of commitment would not go unnoticed. Companies 
trying to decide where to invest their leasing dollars would 
know that the United States is, in fact, committed to growing 
production on the Outer Continental Shelf.
    And don't forget, oil from the Gulf of Mexico has lower GHG 
emissions intensity compared to almost all other global 
producers. Leasing is the fundamental building block upon which 
future oil and gas production is built.
    So much of oil and gas forecasting, such as global supply, 
global demand, and price fluctuations is out of our control. 
But leasing is something we can control, and failing to 
properly carry out a robust leasing plan now will have damaging 
effects for decades to come. By failing to act we are putting 
our future squarely in the hands of adversarial nations around 
the world.
    I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today, and I 
look forward to hearing their testimony.
    I will now yield to my colleague from New York, Ranking 
Member Ocasio-Cortez, for her opening statements.

       STATEMENT OF THE HON. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, A 
     REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Chair.
    Good morning, everyone, and thank you to Director Klein and 
our witnesses for being here today.
    Today, for the first time in 4 months, our colleagues 
across the aisle have gathered us here to discuss how the Biden 
administration needs to do more for offshore oil and gas. It 
appears that this may be part of a broader campaign today to 
distract from the current House Republican chaos and their 
failures to elect a speaker or have a coherent plan to fund the 
government. But regardless, let's get into this.
    Today, we will hear that the Biden administration needs to 
sell more oil and gas leases to Big Oil off our coast to ensure 
``energy security'' and our economic futures. But let's be 
clear. Big Oil does not need more handouts. Oil and gas 
companies already control 12 million acres of Federal water in 
the Gulf of Mexico alone. Over 75 percent of the leases 
industry holds remain unused. And to my own disappointment, the 
Administration plans to hold three more lease sales in the Gulf 
of Mexico over the next 3 years, locking us into decades of 
future development.
    But still, this is never enough. If we want to have any 
chance of staving off the worst impacts of the climate crisis, 
it is essential that we begin to phase out fossil fuel 
extraction from Federal lands and waters.
    Right now, the United States is the largest producer and 
the largest exporter of oil and gas in the world. And despite 
how my colleagues from across the aisle may make it seem, 
production in the Gulf of Mexico is at an all-time high. Oil 
companies are raking in billions of dollars in record profits 
and CEOs are giving themselves tens of millions of dollars in 
salaries and bonuses, all while decreasing fossil fuel worker 
pay and systematically laying off the workforce.
    Despite this record production, record CEO pay, and record 
profit, Americans are still at the whim of the global market 
when it comes to energy prices here at home. Today's hearing 
focuses on how the Biden administration should somehow give 
away more public resources to Big Oil, all while the Gulf 
region experiences simultaneous crises caused both directly and 
indirectly by offshore drilling and fossil fuel development.
    As we speak, Louisiana, one of the states typically with 
the highest rainfall in the country, is experiencing an 
unprecedented wildfire season. In August, over 550 fires in 
Louisiana burned more than 60,000 acres, forcing entire towns 
to flee the flames. Governor Edwards warned that this wildfire 
risk is ``the new normal'' for the state. Drought, subsidence, 
rising seas, and man-made changes to the river have led to 
historically low water levels in the Mississippi River, and 
allowed saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to creep up into 
local water sources. Thousands of people are already suffering 
from water that is unsafe to drink. It is corroding 
infrastructure and leaching heavy metals into drinking water 
systems. Hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans could 
be threatened.
    Of course, there are also the ever-threatening hurricanes 
caused by climate change and the loss of wetlands from oil and 
gas infrastructure, the very natural barriers that are supposed 
to protect coastal communities from storms. There is abandoned 
oil and gas infrastructure, thousands of miles of pipelines 
littering the sea floor, which, if oil and gas companies paid 
to fully reclaim, could employ thousands of oil and gas workers 
as we look to transition and clean up the Gulf waters, but are 
more often left on the sea floor to pollute.
    There are also the public health impacts: increased rates 
of asthma and diseases like cancer around fossil fuel 
infrastructure, which disproportionately harm communities of 
color and low-income Americans. Yet, time and time again, we 
continue to see the failure to consider any of these impacts of 
offshore drilling.
    I implore my colleagues to recognize these impacts and, 
instead of asking for more drilling, have productive 
conversations about a managed decline of fossil fuels, a 
transition that puts workers, communities, and climate first so 
we don't make the same mistakes again as we shape a clean 
energy future.
    Offshore wind has enormous potential in the Gulf and across 
all our coasts to support family-sustaining union jobs and make 
our Federal waters part of the climate solution rather than 
part of the problem.
    I look forward to our hearing from our witnesses, and I 
yield back.

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Normally, I am pretty 
generous if you go over time on 5 minutes. But I think, with 
what we have going on, I have talked to the Ranking Member and 
staff as well, we are going to keep it to 5 minutes. You will 
hear the gavel, so really quickly wrap it up, and I appreciate 
that.
    We will move now to introduce our witnesses. Let me remind 
the witnesses that under Committee Rules, they must limit their 
oral statements to 5 minutes, but their entire statement will 
appear in the hearing record.
    To begin your testimony, please press ``talk'' button on 
the microphone.
    We use timing lights. When you begin, the light will turn 
green. When you have 1 minute remaining, the light will turn 
yellow. At the end of 5 minutes, the light will turn red, and I 
will ask you to please complete your statement.
    I will also allow all witnesses to testify before Member 
questioning.
    Before we announce our first witness, I will recognize the 
Chair of the Full Committee, Bruce Westerman, for 5 minutes for 
his statement.

  STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRUCE WESTERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

    Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Stauber, and thank you 
to the witnesses for being here today.
    And I would like to add, when we talk about oil company 
profits, when you restrict supply and demand increases, prices 
go up and oil companies make a lot more money. Not only 
American oil companies, but OPEC. Saudi Arabia had the largest 
profit of any oil company in history last year. Iran is 
producing much more oil than they have ever produced. They are 
generating a lot of money because of high prices and low 
demand, and they are stepping in to fill that demand, and they 
are also funding terrorists who are attacking innocent people.
    And just when we thought the Biden administration's posture 
toward American energy couldn't get any worse, the Bureau of 
Ocean Energy Management published the long-awaited National 
Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, commonly 
known as the Five-Year Plan. After an unprecedented 457-day 
delay, this plan slashed proposed offshore energy sales from a 
potential of 11 to a pitiful 3, completely eliminating any 
sales in 2024, 2026, and 2028. This plan is nothing short of 
sabotage to our nation's energy security. It is not just 
negligence, it is a calculated move that strikes at the heart 
of American competitiveness and opportunity, and seeks to 
undermine our prosperity and cede global dominance to our 
adversaries, a move that is particularly concerning now amid 
growing instability in the Middle East.
    Industry investments should be driven by the private sector 
and ingenuity of the American worker. Instead, our energy 
economy is dictated and micromanaged by DC bureaucrats focused 
only on shutting down domestic production.
    The offshore industry has evolved and innovated, and now 
produces oil and gas with the lowest emissions. The Federal 
Government has, unfortunately, only obstructed this progress in 
recent years, causing bottlenecks in permit approvals, 
arbitrarily dictating where and when industry operations can 
occur, and raising fees to make production less economical.
    The 5-year plan announcement will only serve to outsource 
our energy demand to OPEC-plus nations, increasing global 
emissions in the process. The decision makers in the Biden 
administration have proposed the fewest opportunities to 
extract the cleanest barrels of oil on Earth over the next 5 
years. They have left Alaskans without an opportunity for 
future sales for the first time in the history of the leasing 
program, even as their neighbors in Russia and Canada are 
producing more than ever.
    President Biden has obstructed the offshore leasing program 
at every turn. He first canceled every remaining sale in the 
previous 5-year plan, which he only held after being explicitly 
required by Congress. He then sought to undermine one of these 
sales by going around the regulatory process to cut a deal with 
the environmentalists that would stymie production resulting 
from that sale. Now, he has proposed the fewest sales in the 
history of the program. These actions undoubtedly undermine our 
position in the global energy landscape, which is critical as 
armed conflict is increasing around the globe.
    Today, our Subcommittee will seek answers from the Biden 
administration on this dismal plan. Now is the moment to change 
course and steer our energy future in the right direction. Our 
producers deserve opportunities to make investments with 
regulatory certainty. American taxpayers deserve a fair return 
on the nation's natural resources. The environment and 
consumers around the world deserve to purchase the lowest 
carbon intensity barrels produced on the planet for centuries 
to come.
    I look forward to the testimony and the discussion, and I 
yield back.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Chair Westerman. I will now 
introduce our first witness, Mr. Tommy Faucheux. He is the 
President of Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, 
located in Baton Rouge.
    Mr. Faucheux, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF TOMMY FAUCHEUX, PRESIDENT, LOUISIANA MID-CONTINENT 
        OIL AND GAS ASSOCIATION, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

    Mr. Faucheux. Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-
Cortez, Representative Graves, and other members of the 
Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name 
is Tommy Faucheux and I am the President of the Louisiana Mid-
Continent Oil and Gas Association, also known as LMOGA.
    Before I begin talking about the issues at hand today, I do 
want to first acknowledge the tragedy in Israel, the lives lost 
in this past week, and acknowledge the tragedy as many of these 
people are now put in a path of war. These recent events remind 
us that our liberties are fleeting. And before any advocacy on 
energy issues comes first the importance of decency and moral 
clarity in public discourse.
    I am here today to speak on behalf of our industry members 
who include the upstream, midstream, and downstream operators 
in Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. While the oil and gas 
industry has a $70 billion impact on our state, my comments 
today are specific to the 2024-2029 National OCS Oil and Gas 
Leasing Proposed Final Program, or the 5-year program.
    For generations, Louisianans have always been at the 
forefront of energy innovation, and we continue to be the 
pioneers in energy. Today, I am excited to say that we have 
established the regulatory framework, workforce, 
infrastructure, and industrial sector to lead the way in 
transforming the industry toward a lower carbon future.
    Through carbon capture, utilization, and storage, thanks to 
Louisiana ingenuity and hard work and commitments from Congress 
and the Biden administration, we are on the precipice of a 
major generational shift in this exciting field. We 
consistently look for ways for meaningful engagement with 
disadvantaged communities impacted by environmental justice, 
and create opportunities in education, workforce development, 
and employment.
    On this journey, robust, predictable oil and gas production 
in the Gulf of Mexico is an integral piece of the puzzle. For 
decades, the Gulf of Mexico has produced some of the most 
energy dense and lowest carbon mineral resources in the world. 
The Biden administration acknowledges this fact in its proposed 
5-year program, that a lack in oil and gas lease sales in the 
GOM would yield a much higher environmental impact as the gap 
in domestic production will be filled by producers from other 
basins whose geology is not as favorable and whose production 
occurs under much less stringent environmental standards.
    Offshore oil and natural gas development supports over 
350,000 jobs throughout the United States, contributing 
billions to the economy and local, state, and Federal tax 
revenues. The offshore oil and gas industry contributes an 
estimated $4 to $5 billion annually to the Federal Treasury.
    Specifically in Louisiana, 250,000 Louisianans, 1 out of 
every 9 people, work in this industry. Our state's ability to 
reduce the impact of catastrophic hurricanes through coastal 
restoration and flood protection depends on a predictable 
source of revenue from offshore production. Without regulatory 
certainty and a predictable, robust 5-year program, many of 
these benefits are at risk.
    When President Biden paused oil and gas leasing on Federal 
lands and waters we saw consumer energy prices rise to historic 
levels, capital investments freeze, and a decline in much-
needed revenue for coastal restoration. As the Administration 
proceeds to finalize regulations in the coming months, such as 
the very important proposed bonding and financial assurance 
rule, our regulators must ensure the GOM remains a viable and 
attractive investment option for operators of all sizes.
    Despite statutory requirements to schedule lease sales, the 
proposed 5-year program is 16 months behind schedule, and will 
only ensure, at best, three offshore lease sales over the 
course of the program. This means, after Lease Sale 261, which 
the Department was court-ordered to hold, we will not see 
another opportunity to access new offshore acreage until 2025. 
Due to the length of time it takes to develop, propose for 
public comment, and finalize a notice of sale, the next lease 
sale likely may not occur until much later.
    LMOGA and our industry partners believe Congress must act 
this year to instead provide greater certainty. We support 
legislative efforts that are before this Committee and others 
that have passed the U.S. House this Congress. H.R. 1, the 
Lower Energy Costs Act, sponsored by Leader Scalise; 
Congressman Graves' BRIDGE Production Act; and Senator 
Cassidy's Offshore Energy Security Act include language 
important to providing certainty to our energy and 
environmental goals. These bills send a clear directive to the 
Administration that America is committed to providing 
affordable, reliable energy to American families and businesses 
and our allies abroad.
    Thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts, and I 
look forward to further discussion today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Faucheux follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Tommy Faucheux, President, Louisiana Mid-
               Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA)
    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, Representative 
Graves and other members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to 
testify today.
    My name is Tommy Faucheux and I am the President of the Louisiana 
Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA). Before I begin talking 
about the issue at hand today, I want to first acknowledge the tragedy 
in Israel, the lives lost last week and the thousands of civilians and 
soldiers in the path of war as we speak. These recent events remind us 
that our liberties are fleeting and before any advocacy on energy 
issues, comes first the importance of decency and moral clarity in 
public discourse. I feel strongly we must fight to protect these basic 
principles and denounce the terrorism that's occurring in Israel.
    Founded in 1923, LMOGA is Louisiana's oldest trade association and 
I am here today to speak on behalf of our industry members, who include 
the upstream, midstream and downstream operators in Louisiana and the 
Gulf of Mexico. While the oil and gas industry has a $70 billion impact 
on our state, my comments today are specific to the 2024-2029 National 
Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed Final Program, or 
the ``5 Year Program.''
    For generations, Louisianans have always been at the forefront of 
energy innovation. From the first commercial scale oil well completed 
in 1901, the first over-the-water oil well in Caddo Lake, the first 
long-distance pipeline from Shreveport to a Baton Rouge refinery, the 
first fluid catalytic cracker unit critical to boost fuel production 
and octane during World War II, and the first drilling rig and 
producing well out of sight of land in the Gulf of Mexico--Louisianans 
have been and continue to be the pioneers in energy.
    Today, I am excited to say that we have established the regulatory 
framework, workforce, infrastructure and industrial sector to lead the 
way in transforming this industry towards a lower carbon future. 
Through carbon capture utilization and storage, thanks to Louisiana 
ingenuity, hard work and resilience, and commitments from Congress and 
the Biden Administration, we are on the precipice of a major 
generational shift in this exciting field. We consistently look for 
ways for meaningful engagement with disadvantaged communities impacted 
by environmental justice and create opportunities in education, 
workforce development, and employment. However, on this journey towards 
lower emissions and more direct benefits to communities, robust, 
predictable oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is an integral 
piece of this puzzle.
    For decades, the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has produced some of the most 
energy-dense and lowest carbon mineral resources in the world. The 
Biden Administration acknowledges this fact in its proposed 5-year 
Program--that a lack in oil and gas lease sales in the GOM would yield 
a much higher environmental impact as the gap in domestic production 
will be filled by producers from other basins whose geology is not as 
favorable and whose production occurs under much less stringent 
environmental standards. In fact, the Biden Administration states that 
the social cost of GHG emissions will increase drastically under the no 
sale option offered in the 5-year program.\1\ While the energy industry 
is rapidly evolving into a lower carbon future, reliance on fossil 
fuels will continue for the foreseeable future. Continuing and 
accelerating production in the GOM will ensure this demand is met with 
a more sustainable source of energy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 2023, 2024-2029 National OCS 
Program, Table 5-10; https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/
documents/oil-gas-energy/leasing/2024-2029_National 
OCSProgram_PFP_Sept_2023.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Offshore oil and natural gas development supports over 350,000 jobs 
throughout the U.S., contributing billions to the economy and local, 
state, and federal tax revenues. The offshore oil and gas industry 
contributes an estimated $4-5 billion annually to the federal treasury. 
Specifically, in Louisiana, 250,000 Louisianans, one out of every nine 
people work in the industry in Louisiana. In addition, the industry 
accounted for nearly $4.5 billion of state and local tax revenue in 
2019, which represents 14.6 percent of total state taxes, licenses and 
fees collected. Much of this revenue stream finds its way into local 
economies and helps provide critical operating resources for local 
governments.
    Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 15% of 
total U.S. crude oil production. Federal offshore natural gas 
production from the basin accounts for 5% of total U.S. dry production. 
Additionally, over 47% of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity is 
located along the Gulf Coast, as well as 51% of total U.S. natural gas 
processing plant capacity. According to the Energy Information 
Administration, in 2022, Louisiana shipped 63% of the nation's 
liquefied natural gas exports. In recent global conflicts in eastern 
Europe, we have seen firsthand the importance of a reliable supply of 
energy and how energy exports from the U.S. have proven to be a 
strategic tool to relieving national security concerns for our allies. 
We balance our robust energy industry with some of the most productive 
commercial and recreational fisheries in the country. It is also 
Louisiana's offshore oil and gas industry, our geologists, mariners, 
and technicians, that are making the Biden Administration's offshore 
wind goals a reality.
    Without regulatory certainty and a predictable, robust 5-year 
program, many of these benefits are at risk. When President Biden 
paused all oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters, we saw 
consumer energy prices rise to historic levels, capital investments 
freeze, and a decline in much-needed revenue for coastal restoration. 
Capital investment necessary to bring an offshore oil rig to production 
can be 40 times more expensive than a standard onshore oil rig. 
Offshore energy development requires decades of planning; and, once a 
lease is secured, several years of geological surveys, exploration, and 
contract negotiations before a project can both be safely and 
economically brought into production.
    As the Administration proceeds to finalize regulations in the 
coming months, such as the very important proposed bonding and 
financial assurance rule, our regulators must ensure the GOM remains a 
viable and attractive investment option for operators of all sizes.
    A 5-year offshore leasing plan that includes area-wide lease sales 
is now required by statute in two different places. OCSLA requires the 
Department to establish a schedule of leases under a 5-year national 
program; and, to be consistent with the statute, to facilitate the 
``expeditious and orderly development [of resources], subject to 
environmental safeguards, in a manner which is consistent with the 
maintenance of competition and other national needs.'' The Inflation 
Reduction Act now also requires the Department to offer area-wide oil 
and gas lease sales in order to meet its renewable energy goals.
    Despite statutory requirements to schedule lease sales, the 
proposed 5-year program is 16 months behind schedule and will only 
ensure, at best, 3 offshore lease sales over the course of the program. 
This means, after Lease Sale 261, which the Department was court-
ordered to hold, we will not see another opportunity to access new 
offshore acreage until 2025. Due to the length of time it takes to 
develop, propose for public comment, and finalize a notice of sale, the 
next lease sale likely may not occur until much later. Many are 
concerned, absent a change in Administrations or additional 
Congressional action, this uncertainty will continue for several more 
years to come.
    The Biden Administration, in fact, has yet to willingly hold a 
lease in the GOM. Under the Biden administration, lease sales 257 and 
259 in the GOM were held only because they were mandated by the 
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and subsequent court action. Lease sale 
261 was scheduled for September 27th, also mandated by the IRA; 
however, the Biden Administration engaged in a ``sue and settle'' 
scheme with outside organizations resulting in a further delay of lease 
sale 261, now scheduled for November 8th. The Administration through 
its proposed listing and critical habitat of the Rice's Whale, could 
also obstruct not just oil and gas but much of our commerce throughout 
the GOM.
    Until the Biden Administration, the Department held at least 2 
offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico each year and at least one 
in the Alaska Outer-continental shelf (OCS). Other plans have proposed 
more oil and gas leasing on all U.S. coasts.
    While the central and western GOM basins are a developed field, 
there remains significant potential to bring much more resources into 
production. In fact, it is the very existence of our vast energy 
infrastructure existing in the GOM that enables a new frontier of 
production on new leases. Subsea tiebacks, connecting new leased 
acreage to existing facilities, are increasingly viable and will be a 
major factor in the coming years of production in the GOM. In order to 
make this a reality we must have a robust and predictable availability 
of new acreage through consistent offshore lease sales.
    Availability of acreage is also only part of ensuring a healthy 
level of production in the GOM sustainable for the long-term, however. 
We must also see regulatory certainty and timely review and approval of 
permits. According to reports, this Administration has permitted 30 
percent fewer oil and gas wells offshore compared to the Trump 
Administration. To dispel any myths that this decline in well starts is 
an indicator of the lack of industry interest in offshore lease sales: 
leadership matters. If industry had certainty of available acreage in a 
5-year program and timely approvals of drilling permits, we would see a 
significant increase in permit applications and revenue to the federal 
treasury from lease sales.
    For Louisianans, the need for a robust, predictable offshore 
leasing program is personal as 37.5% of offshore oil and gas revenues 
from the OCS are statutorily dedicated to the Gulf of Mexico Energy 
Security Act (GOMESA). Restoring our wetlands and building hurricane 
protection levees are critical to protecting our communities from 
devastating storm surges due to tropical storms and hurricanes. GOMESA 
revenues account for about $350 million for coastal protection 
throughout all Gulf producing states each year.
    To put this into perspective, 50 percent of Louisiana's population 
live and work in coastal areas, supporting the offshore energy industry 
of today and tomorrow. For these reasons, our Louisiana delegation, led 
by Majority Leader Scalise and Representative Graves, has introduced 
the BREEZE Act which increases the share of revenue that Gulf producing 
states would be entitled to use for coastal restoration. LMOGA fully 
supports this legislation and urges Congress to act.
    LMOGA and our industry partners believe Congress must act this year 
to provide greater accountability overall and certainty for leasing. We 
support legislative efforts that are before this Committee and others 
that have passed the U.S. House this Congress. H.R. 1, the Lower Energy 
Costs Act by Leader Scalise, Congressman Graves's BRIDGE Production Act 
and Senator Cassidy's Offshore Energy Security Act include language 
important to providing certainty to our energy and environmental goals. 
These bills send a clear directive to the Administration that America 
is committed to providing affordable, reliable energy to American 
families and businesses and our allies abroad.
    Thank you for this opportunity to share LMOGA's thoughts and I look 
forward to further discussion today.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you for your testimony. Our next witness 
is Mr. Jerry Moses, and he is the Director of State and Federal 
Relations for Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, and he is 
stationed in both Juneau, Alaska, and right here in Washington, 
DC.
    Mr. Moses, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

    STATEMENT OF JERRY MOSES, DIRECTOR OF STATE AND FEDERAL 
  RELATIONS FOR ALASKA GOVERNOR MIKE DUNLEAVY, JUNEAU, ALASKA

    Mr. Moses. Good morning, Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member 
Ocasio-Cortez, and other members of the Committee. Thank you 
for this opportunity today to testify on behalf of the state of 
Alaska and Governor Mike Dunleavy.
    The governor appreciates the oversight of this Committee, 
especially on the impacts of this BOEM recent 5-year plan 
decision. As was noted earlier, there are zero proposed leases 
for Alaska, which we are quite worried about. So, we would like 
to maybe clear up some of these errors and omissions that were 
asserted for the reasoning for that decision.
    The Biden administration policy in general has been 
disastrous for Alaska and its people. No other Federal 
administration in our state's brief history has so brazenly and 
recklessly worked to forestall nearly every type of natural 
resource development opportunity, which I will get into a 
little bit later.
    We, in Alaska, like all Americans, are threatened by these 
types of actions that restrict our domestic energy production 
opportunities and make our entire country less energy secure. 
We maintain our demand that, consistent with the spirit and 
letter of the OCS Lands Act, that this Administration 
acknowledge that additional leasing is necessary in Alaska and 
other OCS regions in order to meet our national energy needs. 
In this time of increasing geopolitical turmoil, we should be 
doing everything within our power to grow our national economy 
and boost our domestic energy production.
    Particularly in Alaska, our long-standing source of natural 
gas to power our businesses and heat Alaskan homes is the Cook 
Inlet area, which has seen the development of oil and natural 
gas for nearly 70 years. As people familiar with Alaska know, 
most of the residents live within that region, on the Rail Boat 
Region. Anchorage is part of the Cook Inlet Region, and 
connects the major metropolitan areas of Alaska.
    As these gas fields have aged in the Cook Inlet, additional 
supplies have been increasingly challenging to develop, which 
leads to higher production costs and, consequently and 
unfortunately, higher consumer prices. To counter that we are 
looking at all available options to address this critical 
public need. The most obvious option, which is now off the 
table under this plan, is developing the resources that are 
right next door in the Cook Inlet OCS. There is no shortage of 
potential resources on these lands. BOEM's own estimates show 
billions of cubic feet of gas resources that could be produced 
in the Cook Inlet area.
    And we know why this is off the table. BOEM's own internal 
memoranda indicate that avoiding speculative and hypothetical 
climate impacts is more important to the agency than ensuring a 
reliable energy supply for hundreds of thousands of Alaskans. 
We believe that decision is indefensible.
    This Administration hides behind the rhetoric of limited 
demand for leases or limited interest to develop these 
resources. The full story is a little more complicated than 
that. It is our assertion that the asserted limited demand for 
that is due to over-regulation by the government and the fact 
that producers simply have no confidence that this 
Administration will actually approve permits to develop those 
resources.
    BOEM's policy is entirely at odds with the OCS Lands Act, 
the public interest, and common sense. BOEM has zero lease 
sales scheduled again in the area of Alaska. We have a proven 
ability to develop those resources and a market that 
desperately needs those resources.
    This testimony today prioritizes the Cook Inlet Region, but 
the entire region of Alaska is off the board under this 
proposal, particularly the North Slope of Alaska, where we have 
already developed and extracted 18 billion barrels of oil. This 
is consistent with other actions that have been taken by this 
Administration in Alaska, which are particularly egregious from 
our point of view, which is the cancellation of the ANWR leases 
recently, and also the proposed rule for the NPR-A, which would 
cut off 13 million acres from future development and future 
generations of Alaskans.
    To wrap up briefly, thank you again for inviting me to 
testify today on this topic, which is so vitally important to 
our state. The state of Alaska believes the current 5-year plan 
is fundamentally deficient because it fails to even hold one 
lease sale in the Cook Inlet Region and support the critical 
energy needs of the residents of Alaska. We implore this 
Committee and Congress in general to restore sanity and promote 
rational energy policy at this critical time in our nation's 
history. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Moses follows:]
   Prepared Statement of Jerry Moses, Director of State and Federal 
      Relations, Office of Governor Mike Dunleavy, State of Alaska

    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the 
State of Alaska and Governor Mike Dunleavy.
    The Governor very much appreciates this Committee's oversight of 
the impacts of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)'s September 
29, 2023 release of the 2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil 
and Gas Leasing Proposed Final Program (PFP) and Final Programmatic 
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on our state and its residents, 
and the opportunity to dispel the significant errors and omissions in 
the asserted justifications for this federal action.
    Biden Administration policy has been an unmitigated disaster for 
Alaska and its people. No other federal administration in our state's 
brief history has so brazenly and recklessly worked to forestall nearly 
every type of natural resource development opportunity.
    We in Alaska, like all Americans, are threatened by these types of 
actions that restrict our domestic energy production opportunities and 
make our entire country less energy secure. We maintain our demand 
that, consistent with the spirit and letter of the Outer Continental 
Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), the Biden Administration acknowledge that 
additional leasing is necessary in Alaska and in other outer 
continental shelf (OCS) regions in order to meet our national energy 
needs. In this time of increasing geopolitical turmoil, we should be 
doing everything within our power to grow our national economy and 
boost development of our nation's energy resources.
There is demand and need for Cook Inlet Natural Gas justifying leasing 
        in the Federal OCS in Alaska

    Our long-standing source of natural gas to power our businesses and 
heat Alaskan homes is the Cook Inlet, which has seen the development of 
oil and natural gas for nearly 70 years. As these fields have aged, 
additional supplies have been increasingly challenging to develop, 
leading to higher production costs and, consequently, higher consumer 
prices. We are looking at all available options to address this 
critical public necessity.
    One option that is off the table is developing the federal 
resources that are right next door in the Cook Inlet OCS. There is no 
shortage of potential resources on these lands--BOEM's own estimates 
show billions of cubic feet of gas resources could be produced from the 
Cook Inlet program area. And we know why it is off the table--BOEM's 
own internal memoranda indicate that avoiding speculative and 
hypothetical climate impacts is more important to the agency than 
ensuring a reliable and affordable energy supply for hundreds of 
thousands of Alaskans. We believe this is unconscionable.
    This administration hides behind the rhetoric of limited demand for 
leases or limited interest to develop these resources. The full story 
is that through over-regulation and collusion with litigious 
environmental non-governmental organizations, the federal government 
has successfully destroyed any reasonable expectation of obtaining 
permits or authorizations to explore for resources, build 
infrastructure to develop resources, or get those resources to market 
in Alaska's OCS. In other words, claims of limited interest are nothing 
more than BOEM's self-fulfilling prophecy.
    BOEM's policy is entirely at odds with OCSLA, the public interest, 
and common sense. BOEM has zero lease sales scheduled in an area with 
known resources, the known technical capacity to safely develop those 
resources, and countless Americans who need those resources. This 
policy stands as yet another example of this administration's brand of 
eco-imperialism.
There are additional resources in the Alaska OCS that would benefit the 
        State and the Country as a whole but are withdrawn contrary to 
        long-term public interests

    This testimony prioritizes Cook Inlet's natural gas supplies 
because of the urgency of finding solutions to our energy needs in 
Alaska. However, it is important to highlight for the Committee that 
the same restrictive and detrimental policies that are starting to be 
applied in the Gulf of Mexico have already been deployed in Alaska.
    Today, essentially all of the most prospective OCS areas off our 
North Slope--where we have successfully and safely developed nearly 18 
billion barrels of oil to date--are not only omitted from the five-year 
plan but are subject to presidential withdrawals that limit any leasing 
or activity in the area. This includes huge areas that were previously 
under lease, which saw billions of dollars in prior exploration 
efforts, and/or saw significant drilling activity--but are now off the 
table for further development. The State of Alaska has been 
unjustifiably targeted with these expansive OCSLA withdrawals, which 
will produce long-term economic harm to our state and the nation.
    We believe this Committee should examine how this OCSLA withdrawal 
authority has been abused and make clear to this administration that 
this authority is not meant to block opportunity across entire regions.
We believe the effects of this policy are detrimental to Alaska and the 
        nation

    As a resource state, Alaska has a friendly rivalry with our peer 
states to compete on production. However, when the federal government 
limits opportunities in certain areas we all lose. We lose because the 
national economic benefits, consumer benefits, and quality of life that 
are supported by domestic energy production are lost for future 
generations.
    Geopolitical instability is all around us and seemingly increasing 
every day. Nearly every energy jurisdiction around the world is 
embroiled in conflicts that threaten U.S. interests. Inexplicably, this 
administration is meeting that energy supply threat with the most 
restrictive five-year plan since the enactment of OCSLA. The economies, 
coastal communities, and Americans that work in the energy industry 
will feel the pain from these perverse federal policies--Alaskans deal 
with roadblock after roadblock to our resources every day. As a result, 
we suffer directly from higher fuel prices. All Americans need the 
resources in the Gulf of Mexico to be produced and utilized for the 
benefit of our nation.
These anti-Alaska, anti-energy policies have unfortunately become the 
        norm

    Finally, I would like to draw the Committee's attention to how 
consistently harmful this administration's anti-energy policies are. In 
Alaska, we have seen cancellation of existing leases and stalling of 
the statutorily required future lease sales in the Coastal Plain of the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The federal approval of the 
Willow project took a bipartisan 60-0 vote from our state legislature 
and a broad coalition to demonstrate how unquestionably in the public 
interest it was. Now we are seeing a hyper-restrictive rulemaking in 
the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska (NPR-A) intended to take those 
resources off the table forever, as well. The bar is almost 
insurmountably high for oil and gas development, no matter how 
beneficial it is to local and Indigenous communities, how small its 
environmental footprint, or how minimal its emissions profile may be.
    Further, we seek resource development of critical minerals to see 
the potential for clean and renewable energy unlocked. However, the 
Ambler Road project to the Ambler mining district in Alaska is trapped 
in a loop of remands and revisions and new restrictions. Other mining 
projects on State lands cannot even go through the permitting process 
due to ad hoc federal pre-disapprovals. Environmental reviews for other 
mineral activities languish for years without an end date in sight. We 
unfortunately believe the Biden Administration is taking a none-of-the-
above approach to energy strategy, of which the BOEM five-year plan is 
yet another example of.
Conclusion

    Thank you for inviting me to testify today on this topic, which is 
so vitally important to our state. The State of Alaska believes the 
current PFP is fundamentally deficient because it fails to hold even 
one lease sale in Cook Inlet to support the critical energy needs of 
the residents of Alaska. Since this administration seems intent on 
offering up Alaska as a sacrifice on the altar of climate extremism to 
appease radical environmentalists, we implore this Committee and 
Congress to restore sanity and promote rational energy policy at this 
critical time in our nation's history.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. And Mr. Moses, Minnesota 
has the most mineral wealth of any state in our nation, with 
the exception of Alaska. I thank you.
    I am now going to introduce Mr. Shane Seibel. He is the 
Executive Director for the Southern Ute Growth Fund, located in 
Colorado.
    Mr. Seibel, you are up for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF SHANE SEIBEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTHERN UTE 
                 GROWTH FUND, IGNACIO, COLORADO

    Mr. Seibel. [Speaking Native language.] Good morning, 
Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and Committee 
members. My name is Shane Seibel. I am an enrolled member of 
the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Executive Director of the 
Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund. Thank you for inviting 
me to participate and be before you today.
    For decades, our Tribe has come to Congress to discuss the 
prudent development of energy resources right here in this 
great hall, many leaders I have to acknowledge that have gone 
on and been here before us, just like your relatives have been 
here before us, as well. And I acknowledge them that have 
passed on to the next world. I am connected to them as I sit 
here today on the foundation that they have built for our great 
Tribe.
    Our reservation is in Southwest Colorado. Our Tribe is the 
largest employer in the region. We have a AAA credit rating, 
and our members have jobs, health insurance, and the 
opportunity to obtain a college or vocational degree. Our 
elders have stable retirement benefits, and we are on the way 
to providing future generations the opportunity to maintain our 
Tribe, our culture, and our lands in perpetuity.
    The Tribe's economic success has been tied to development 
of oil and gas resources. Almost 25 years ago, Tribal Council 
separated our business activity from our tribal governance and 
created the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund. It has 
blossomed into a diverse portfolio of energy and non-energy 
investments across 16 states and the Gulf of Mexico. Over the 
last two decades, we have participated in many Gulf lease 
sales.
    The Gulf is one of the few places in the United States 
where conventional reservoirs still occur, allowing businesses 
that lack large existing acreage positions to compete for new 
opportunities. That speaks volumes for us, being a small tribe.
    The Tribe's interests in the offshore leasing program are 
similar to those of the United States. The revenues received by 
the Tribe through the Growth Fund are a major funding source 
for our reservation schools, health care facilities, law 
enforcement, and cultural preservation.
    In the same way, over the past 20 years offshore energy 
resources have provided over $134 billion of revenue to the 
U.S. Treasury, funding daily government operations and 
providing security and services to Americans. From 2000 to 
2020, the average number of OCS lease sales was 3.4 per year. 
In the past 3 years, only three lease sales have occurred, with 
two of them being mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act. The 
next lease sale is scheduled to occur on November 8 of this 
year.
    For the next 5 years, BOEM has proposed to reduce the 
number of offshore lease sales from an initial 47 to 3. This 
would make calendar year 2024 the first year in more than 60 
years that a Federal offshore lease sale will not be held. The 
latest program reflects the Secretary's determination to end 
global reliance on fossil fuel energy by 2050. However, the 
process and the effects of replacing fossil fuels, or like I 
like to say, hydrocarbons, with energy substitutes are 
unreliable.
    The uncertainty has created surrounding offshore leasing 
needs to be eliminated. Unnecessary gaps in the program erode 
the future availability of energy resources. Today, over 80 
percent of global energy consumed is fossil-based, providing 
heat, electricity, fuel, and products used to build homes and 
electric cars.
    About 50 million people qualify as low-income and face a 
high energy burden. Expensive energy creates a strain on low-
income families, forcing them to make tough financial choices. 
Last January, in our neck of the woods, pricing reached a 
record high $43 per MMBtu due to low storage levels, increased 
seasonal demand, and limited pipeline infrastructure. Some of 
our bills increased $1,000 per month. To keep energy both 
affordable and available, adequate supplies of oil and gas are 
needed, while an aggressive transition to carbon neutrality 
occurs.
    I hope this testimony provides helpful information 
regarding the importance of OCS leasing to the Tribe and the 
United States. We believe in the objective to achieve carbon 
neutral energy production, and believe continued leasing and 
development of offshore resources are necessary elements of the 
energy transition, the maintenance of national security, and 
assuring economic stability in the United States.
    Thank you for the opportunity.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Seibel follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Shane Seibel, Executive Director, Southern Ute 
                        Indian Tribe Growth Fund

INTRODUCTION

    Good morning Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and 
other Committee members. I am Shane Seibel, Executive Director of the 
Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund, the business arm of the Southern 
Ute Indian Tribe. It is an honor to appear before members of both sides 
of the aisle to discuss a subject of major importance. For decades, our 
tribal leaders have come before Congressional committees to discuss the 
prudent development of energy resources in Indian country and across 
the United States. Prudent development of energy resources allows 
economies to grow, including our own tribal economy, and helps meet the 
energy needs of the American people. I hope our comments benefit this 
Committee.
    In this testimony, I describe our Reservation and how energy 
development, including our activity offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, has 
affected the Southern Ute people. I can speak to these matters not just 
as the Executive Director of the Tribe's Growth Fund. I can also attest 
to the dramatic impact that energy development has had on me as an 
enrolled member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Our energy strategy 
is to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy with a path to 
carbon neutrality. Energy developed from the Gulf of Mexico can play a 
crucial role in implementing that strategy.
    The recent actions of the Biden Administration demonstrate a policy 
that minimizes future leasing and production of the Nation's oil and 
gas resources from offshore. We understand the need to reduce carbon 
emissions in addressing climate change, and we also share the objective 
of achieving carbon neutrality in energy production. However, the 
global demand for energy is increasing, and we believe that the leasing 
of Federal offshore resources and their prudent development are 
necessary elements of energy transition, the maintenance of national 
security, and assuring economic stability. Additionally, we believe 
that reforms are necessary in the conduct of environmental reviews 
under the National Environmental Policy Act (``NEPA'') so that 
meaningful evaluation of alternatives can proceed in a timely fashion 
and greater certainty can be provided to agency decisions authorizing 
Federal mineral leasing and development both onshore and offshore.
I. THE TRIBE, OUR RESERVATION, AND THE GROWTH FUND

    Our Tribe has just under 1,500 members. Our Reservation consists of 
approximately 700,000 acres of land located in southwestern Colorado, 
near the Four Corners area. Some 311,000 surface acres of the 
Reservation are held in trust by the Federal Government for the benefit 
of the Tribe; however, the Tribe is also the beneficial owner of 
additional severed mineral estates held in trust for the benefit of the 
Tribe within the Reservation. Although the bulk of the Reservation 
involves tribal trust lands, interspersed throughout the Reservation 
are Federal, state, and private lands, as well as some allotted Indian 
lands.
    Through financial discipline and farsighted leadership, the Tribe 
has developed a record of sound managerial experience and business 
practice. For instance, the Tribe was the first Indian tribe in the 
nation with a AAA+ credit rating, which was earned through years of 
steady governance and successful business management. The path to 
successful economic development has had significant challenges. Fifty 
years ago, our Tribal Council had to suspend the practice of 
distributing per capita payments to tribal members because the Tribe 
could not afford them. Today the Tribe is the largest employer in 
southwest Colorado with more than 1,000 employees. The Tribe provides 
health insurance for its tribal members and operates its own health 
clinic. The Tribe funds educational opportunities so that all members 
may obtain a college or vocational degree and runs its own school for 
elementary and middle school children. The campus of our tribal 
headquarters is dotted with state-of-the art buildings, including a 
justice center, museum, and recreational health facility. This success 
was not an accident; it is the product of sustained effort and 
discipline.
    Without question, the Tribe's economic success has been tied to 
development of the Tribe's oil and gas resources. Successful 
development of those resources, principally coalbed methane gas, has 
resulted in a higher standard of living for our tribal members. Our 
members have jobs. Our educational programs provide meaningful 
opportunities at all levels. Our elders have stable retirement 
benefits. We have exceeded many of our financial goals, and we are well 
on the way to providing our grandchildren and their grandchildren the 
opportunity to maintain our Tribe, our culture, and our lands in 
perpetuity.
    Almost 25 years ago, tribal leaders had the foresight to recognize 
that for our Tribe to succeed in business, we must operate our 
businesses differently than our government. As a result of that vision, 
the Tribal Council developed a Financial Plan which we still operate 
under today that created the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund, a 
separate and distinct division of the Tribe. Our Permanent Fund, which 
is our government, is focused on providing services to our members and 
managing our lands and the environment. The Growth Fund is focused on 
providing economic prosperity for our Tribe as well as employment 
opportunities for our Tribal Members. The Growth Fund started by 
successfully developing the Tribe's energy resources and today, it has 
blossomed into a diversified portfolio of energy and non-energy 
investments across 16 states and the Gulf of Mexico. Simultaneously, 
the Tribe has overseen governance and protection of the environmental 
and cultural resources, either through the exercise of its inherent 
powers over land-use or through express delegations of Federal 
authority over air and water quality regulation.
    One of our portfolio companies, Red Willow Production Company, a 
wholly owned component of the Tribe, has participated in oil and gas 
activities on our Reservation for nearly 30 years. To diversify the 
Tribe's energy portfolio, Red Willow Offshore, LLC, was created in 
2003, and since that time Red Willow Offshore has participated as a 
successful bidder in multiple Gulf of Mexico offshore lease sales and 
has actively participated as a non-operating working interest owner in 
both shelf and deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is one of 
the few places in the United States where exploration of traditional 
reservoirs still occurs allowing businesses that do not have large 
existing acreage positions to compete for new opportunities to grow or 
sustain their business models.
II. BOEM OFFSHORE LEASING PROGRAM BENEFITS

    The Tribe's interests in the BOEM National Outer Continental Shelf 
(``OCS'') leasing program are similar to those of the United States. 
Just as the United States Government enjoys the financial benefits of 
offshore leasing and successful development, so does the Tribe's 
government. The revenues received by the Tribe through the Growth 
Fund--including Red Willow's offshore investments--are a major funding 
source for our Reservation's schools, healthcare facilities, law 
enforcement, social programs, and cultural preservation.
    In the United States, offshore energy resources have generated over 
134 billion dollars of revenue from lease sales, royalties on 
production, and rental fees over the past 20 years.\1\ The largest 
portion of these funds goes to the U.S. Treasury to fund daily 
operations of the government in helping to provide security and 
services to the American people. Other portions of those funds support 
revenue sharing with states and coastal political subdivisions and are 
used for coastal conservation, restoration, and hurricane protection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Natural Resources Revenue 
website, ``Fiscal Year Revenue, 2004-2022.csv,'' https://
revenuedata.doi.gov/downloads/revenue
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Fully acknowledging the financial opportunities made available to 
the Tribe through OCS leasing, we also recognize that prudent 
development of the Nation's energy resources is important to national 
security. Whether those domestic energy resources are natural gas 
produced from tribal lands in the Southwest or oil from the Deep Gulf, 
the availability of those energy resources allows our country to 
survive and prosper without substantial threats from outside forces. 
For example, a strong energy industry has allowed the United States to 
escape the natural gas supply-stranglehold that Russian President 
Vladimir Putin attempted to place on Europe because of its support of 
Ukrainian sovereignty. We are living in uncertain times and a strong 
U.S. energy industry fosters national security in the U.S. and with our 
allies.
III. FEDERAL OCS LEASE SALES

    Under Section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 
U.S.C. Sec. 1344), Congress has directed the Secretary of the Interior 
(``Secretary'') to schedule ``as precisely as possible'' lease sales 
for consecutive 5-year periods in a National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing 
Program (``National OCS Program'') after evaluating specified 
attributes of OCS areas. The Secretary is authorized to select the 
``timing and location'' of proposed OCS lease sales that best meet 
national energy needs and that balance, to the maximum extent 
practicable, the potential for environmental damage, discovery of oil 
and gas, and adverse impact on the coastal zone (43 U.S.C. 
Sec. 1344(a)(2)). From 2000-2020, the average number of annual lease 
sales was 3.4 per year.\2\ However, only 3 total lease sales under the 
National OCS Program have occurred in the past three years, and two of 
the three were expressly required by Congress in the Inflation 
Reduction Act.\3\ An additional lease sale required by the Inflation 
Reduction Act (Lease Sale 261) is scheduled to occur on November 8th of 
this year following entry of a preliminary injunction by the U.S. 
District Court for the Western District of Louisiana invalidating last-
minute restrictions imposed by BOEM and a denial by the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of a request for an emergency stay.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ U.S. Dept of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management 
website, https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-energy/lease-sales
    \3\ Act of August 16, 2022, The Inflation Reduction Act 
(Sec. 50264), Pub. L. No. 117-169, 136 Stat. 1818 (2022) (Lease Sales 
258 and 259).
    \4\ See Unpublished Order (Sept. 25, 2023), State of Louisiana v. 
Haaland, Case No. 23-30666 (5th Cir. 2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BOEM now proposes to further reduce the number and size of OCS 
lease sales. In January 2018, BOEM published the Draft Proposed Program 
(``DPP'') for the 2023-2028 period, which included a proposed schedule 
of forty-seven lease sales in all four OCS regions and twenty-five of 
the twenty-six planning areas. The subsequent Proposed Program, 
published in July 2022, eliminated twenty-four of the twenty-six 
planning areas and proposed a schedule of up to eleven lease sales in 
two program areas. The Final Proposal published in September 2023 
includes three potential OCS oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of 
Mexico (``GOM'') Program Area, one potential sale in 2025, one 
potential sale in 2027, and one potential sale in 2029. See U.S. Dept. 
of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 2024-2029 National 
Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Proposed Final Program 
(Sept. 2023) (``BOEM's 2024-2029 Proposed Final Program'').
    The uncertainty that has been created with offshore leasing in the 
past few years needs to be eliminated, and the Nation must recognize 
the important role that offshore oil and gas development plays in 
meeting energy demand. Information obtained from the U.S. Energy 
Information Administration and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental 
Enforcement confirms that production from existing OCS leases currently 
constitutes 15% of domestic oil production and 2% of natural gas 
production.\5\ Unnecessary gaps in the offshore leasing program erode 
confidence in the future availability of energy resources from the Gulf 
of Mexico. Further, preparation for sales by industry participants is a 
complex and expensive process. In statutorily requiring optimal 
precision in the formulation of five-year lease sales programs (43 
U.S.C. Sec. 1344(a)), Congress understood that evaluations of potential 
exploration prospects involve application of constantly improving 
technologies and expert assessments of regional geoscience, 
infrastructure, and economic feasibility. Recognizing the inherent risk 
of participating in auctions, industry needs at least some level of 
predictability that lease sales will be held so it can determine 
whether to deploy the capital and resources needed to participate 
effectively in scheduled lease sales. Predictability of lease sales is 
not just a need for industry; it also serves as an important tool in 
maintaining reasonable forecasting of energy supplies during the next 
few decades as aggressive transitioning to renewable energy sources 
proceeds in the United States and around the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ BOEM's 2024-2029 Proposed Final Program at 6-7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Today, over 80% of the energy consumed around the world is fossil 
based.\6\ To keep energy both affordable and available, adequate 
supplies of oil and gas are critically needed while an aggressive 
transition to carbon neutrality occurs. According to the U.S. 
Department of Energy, 44% of Americans, or about fifty million people, 
qualify as low-income and have a disproportionately high energy burden; 
this means the percentage of gross household income they spend on 
energy is three times higher than it is for non-low-income 
Americans.\7\ The more expensive energy becomes, the larger the burden 
on low-income families, forcing families to make tough choices. We 
experienced this phenomenon this past January in southwest Colorado 
when San Juan Basin Indian Index Pricing hit an all-time high at $43.20 
per MMBTU.\8\ This increased pricing was a direct result of record low 
storage levels of natural gas along the U.S. west coast, increased 
seasonal demand along the Pacific coast as a result of a cold and wet 
winter, and limited pipeline infrastructure to deliver natural gas to 
the west coast markets. That price spike resulted in some local 
consumers' gas utility bills increasing by over 1000%. Some individuals 
saw their bills increase by more than $1,000 for one month when 
compared to prior January bills. This increase is more than 16% of the 
monthly average median income for a household in LaPlata County.\9\ We 
must figure out a way to provide affordable and reliable energy 
throughout the energy transition and prevent disadvantaged communities 
from being disproportionately impacted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Energy Institute website, https://www.energyinst.org/
    \7\ U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and 
Renewables website: https://www.energy.gov/eere/energy-accessibility-
and-affordability
    \8\ U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Natural Resources Revenue 
website: https://onrr.gov/indian/indian-pricing?tabs=indian-gas-index-
zone
    \9\ U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau Quick Facts website: 
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/laplatacountycolorado
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV. TRANSITION DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

    Like the United States, the Tribe and its members share concerns 
about the effects of fossil fuel consumption and climate change, and 
the Tribe has been at the forefront of environmental stewardship and 
energy transition in the Southwest. Its projects include: the capture 
of fugitive methane naturally escaping from miles of coal outcrops on 
the Reservation, one of the first utility scale solar projects in the 
Four Corners, ongoing construction of a carbon capture facility at our 
gas treating site, and ongoing development of one of the first few 
zero-emissions NET Power natural gas-fired power plants in the country.
    Reaching ``net-zero domestic GHG emissions by 2050 [is] the 
objective agreed to by President Biden and the parties to the Paris 
Agreement.'' \10\ BOEM's 2024-2029 Proposed Final Program reflects the 
Secretary's determination that the end of global reliance on fossil 
fuel energy is achievable by 2050; however, the process and effects of 
the replacement of fossil fuel with energy substitutes is uncertain. 
Because of the omnipresent nature of petroleum products in the vast 
domestic marketplace, the transition away from hydrocarbons to 
renewable energy sources will unquestionably take many years. Aside 
from providing heat, electricity, and transportation-fuel, petroleum 
products are most likely elements of the chair you might be sitting in, 
the carpet, the furniture, the walls, and other materials used to build 
your house, office, or car (including electrically powered vehicles). 
BOEM's own forecasts demonstrate ``that for the next ten years, the 
[GOM] can and will continue to support America's energy demands and 
economic development as needed--even as the United States continues to 
make strides toward sustainable energy sources.'' U.S. Outer 
Continental Shelf Gulf of Mexico Region Oil and Gas Production Forecast 
2022-2031 at 5 (BOEM, July 2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 
2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program 
Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement at 221 (Sept. 2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BOEM fully acknowledges that ``[t]echnological advancements and a 
strong regulatory framework have contributed to reducing the carbon 
profile of the OCS.'' BOEM's 2024-2029 Proposed Final Program at 1-10. 
Based on current research data, BOEM also confirms that deepwater GOM 
production appears to have one of the lowest carbon intensities of all 
global crude oil projects. Id. at 1-11. Based on the low carbon 
intensity of production from the deepwater GOM, not holding lease sales 
in the GOM could have the counterproductive effect of raising global 
greenhouse gas emissions, and GOM deepwater production should continue 
to be part of the long-term U.S. strategy to lower carbon emissions as 
long as it remains one of the lowest carbon intensity barrels of oil 
produced around the world.
V. NEPA IN TRIBAL MINERAL DEVELOPMENT AND OFFSHORE LEASING

    Despite the Tribe's decades-long success in conducting highly 
complex business transactions, both on and off the Reservation, and its 
record of successfully implementing environmental laws and standards, 
federal statutes still require Federal review and approval of most 
transactions occurring on Reservation lands held in trust for the Tribe 
by the United States. Federal approval constitutes federal action, 
which triggers environmental review under the NEPA, 42 U.S.C. 
4332(2)(C). Whether the Tribe's proposed action involves the granting 
of a right-of-way for a waterline or fiber-optic cable or entering into 
an oil and gas lease to protect against resource drainage from 
neighboring non-Indian wells, Bureau of Indian Affairs (``BIA'') 
approval is required. Whether because of funding or staffing needs, BIA 
faces major challenges in carrying out NEPA reviews, which causes 
delays and potential lost opportunities. Accordingly, the Tribe has 
been supportive of NEPA reforms that facilitate more expeditious 
reviews and decision-making.
    Because of NEPA's dramatic presence in the administration of the 
Tribe's lands, the Tribe participated actively in the rulemaking 
undertaken by the Council on Environmental Quality (``CEQ'') that led 
to the revised 2020 Rule as well as CEQ's more recent Phase 1 Revision 
process. See Letter from Chairman Christine Sage to CEQ dated Aug. 20, 
2018, CEQ-2018-0001-12261; Letter from Chairman Christine Sage to CEQ 
dated Feb. 25, 2020, CEQ-2019-0003-82306; Letter from Chairman Melvin 
J. Baker to CEQ dated November 18, 2021, Docket No. CEQ-2021-0002-
36121. The Tribe also participated as an amicus in the case of Wild 
Virginia v. Council on Environmental Quality, 544 F.Supp.3d 620 (W.D. 
Va. 2020), aff'd, 56 F.4th 281 (4th Cir. 2022), which dismissed 
challenges to the 2020 CEQ Rule. Several weeks ago, the Tribe submitted 
detailed comments addressing CEQ's proposed NEPA Phase 2 rulemaking. 
See ``National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations 
Revisions Phase 2,'' 88 Fed. Reg. 49,924 (July 31, 2023); Letter from 
Chairman Melvin J. Baker to CEQ dated September 26, 2023, CEQ-2023-003-
27134.
    On April 20, 2022, CEQ adopted its Phase 1 Final Rule (87 Fed. Reg. 
23,453), which reversed key regulatory reforms to administration of 
NEPA that had been instituted in 2020. Slightly more than a year 
following CEQ's adoption of the Phase 1 Final Rule, Congress passed, 
and President Biden signed, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, Pub. 
L. No. 118-5 (``FRA''), which statutorily amended NEPA by clarifying 
its scope and adding efficiencies to NEPA's environmental review 
processes. Congress' FRA amendments to NEPA appeared to recognize that 
the NEPA process had reached a level of unworkability, particularly 
when the proposed Federal action involved large scale projects, such as 
those needed to upgrade the Nation's highway system, electrical grid, 
and major infrastructure. Among other provisions, the FRA facilitates 
effective inter-agency use of categorical exclusions to expedite 
projects that are not likely to cause significant adverse impacts to 
the environment. FRA, Pub. L. No. 118-5 Sec. 321(a), 137 Stat. 43 
(establish new NEPA Sec. 109).
    Just as the Tribe has experienced delays and challenges regarding 
development of tribal lands, the offshore leasing program has also 
become victim to the constantly changing interpretations and 
application of the NEPA process. In recognition of the importance of 
the National OCS Leasing Program and the size of investment implicated 
in making leasing and development decisions, we believe that a more 
expeditious process of review is needed. That process should not be one 
that abandons meaningful consideration of or mitigation of adverse 
environmental consequences. It should be one that provides greater 
certainty to the conduct of lease sales and planned development. In 
sum, we continue to encourage Congress to address permit reform, so 
resources and infrastructure development needed to provide affordable 
and reliable energy with a path to carbon neutrality can be achieved.
CONCLUSION

    We hope this testimony provides information regarding the 
importance of OCS leasing to the Tribe and United States. Oil and gas 
production from the Gulf of Mexico does not just provide revenue and 
economic benefit to the U.S. while supporting national security. It 
also can be a critical supply of oil and gas to provide affordable and 
reliable energy throughout the energy transition to carbon neutrality. 
Again, we are most appreciative of the opportunity to present this 
testimony.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you for your testimony. Our next witness 
is Ms. Megan Biven, who is the founder of True Transition. She 
is from Louisiana, but currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
    Ms. Biven, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF MEGAN BIVEN, FOUNDER, TRUE TRANSITION, VIENNA, 
                            AUSTRIA

    Ms. Biven. Thank you so much. Chairman Stauber, Ranking 
Member Ocasio-Cortez, and distinguished members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify here today.
    My name is Megan Biven, the Founder of True Transition, an 
organization dedicated to American energy produced by American 
workers for the benefit of American communities. Prior to this, 
I served within the Department of the Interior's Bureau of 
Ocean Energy Management, where I performed programmatic policy 
analysis and helped execute offshore lease sales.
    I sit here today in an optimistic mood because, as divided 
as we Americans may seem to be, we actually do want the same 
things: energy security, a healthy and clean environment, good 
and safe jobs, shared prosperity, and a future we can be proud 
to leave to our children. To me, these hopes represent a strong 
foundation on which to build consensus.
    We are here to consider the staggered 5-year program 
leasing schedule. I would like to suggest that this slowing 
down of the Gulf of Mexico conveyor belt presents an 
opportunity. Instead of focusing on delivering a lease sale 
every 6 months, let us instead focus on delivering our offshore 
workers back to their families at the end of their hitch.
    True Transition recently conducted a national survey of 
American oil and gas workers. The results, which include 
responses from over 1,600 American workers, revealed troubling 
attitudes toward safety. For Gulf Coast states, over a third of 
respondents said they would hesitate to raise a workplace 
safety issue for fear of employer reprisal. Regulation on the 
OCS is more red carpet than red tape, and it is our workers who 
pay the price.
    I see a few immediate actions that this body can take to 
improve its governance of this program and the safety of our 
Federal waters. The recent disaster of the Seacor Power and 
near misses, Deepwater Asgard and the Noble Globetrotter II, 
demonstrate a tension between the boardroom and the ship's 
bridge. And there should be no room for craven calls from a 
Houston high-rise while American workers face danger on a 
stormy gulf.
    Therefore, I recommend that this body directs BSEE and 
Coast Guard to create and issue a universal trigger to cease 
activity and commit to evacuation procedures during inclement 
weather.
    Louisiana recently passed Jacob's Law, which mandates GPS 
beacons for offshore aircraft travel to and from Louisiana 
heliports. I recommend that BSEE build upon this success, and 
require that all operators provide beacons to all OCS workers, 
regardless of their work function. It is time to make these 
pieces of lifesaving equipment mandatory on the OCS.
    A lease sale every 6 months doesn't actually guarantee jobs 
anymore. While we have doubled production on the Shelf, 
production jobs have cratered. The industry has learned to 
produce more with less workers. But you know what could create 
jobs? Eighteen thousand miles of no-longer-in-use pipelines 
sitting on the sea floor. Enforcing decommissioning obligations 
could begin immediately, utilizing workforces and docked 
vessels today.
    A 2022 study estimates that decommissioning Gulf of Mexico 
infrastructure would create over 5,000 jobs per year. This is 
not counting the indirect jobs and scrap value of materials 
rotting and rusting in the Gulf, particularly steel. There is a 
second industrial act just waiting on the sea floor.
    The OCS Gulf of Mexico Leasing Program, with its biannual 
sales, is an inherited policy of 1970s project independence. 
Project independence focused on shoring up American resources 
and building American capacity for Americans. We are producing 
more oil and gas now than we have at any point in American 
history. Our current posture, however, is one increasingly 
focused on export of American natural gas and, thanks to the 
2015 repeal, crude oil.
    American exports of crude oil have increased by 878 percent 
since the repeal. Indeed, in a time period of less than 2 
months, we exported more crude oil than the entire 2022 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve emergency withdrawal. Exports of 
natural gas also increased by 507 percent, despite an abundance 
of domestic natural gas resources. Last year, we experienced 
the largest annual increase in average residential electricity 
spending on record.
    If we are going to pit American offshore wind destined to 
power American homes against natural gas or crude oil destined 
for foreign shores, I believe the American people deserve an 
honest answer on why.
    We sometimes forget that we are the beneficiaries of 
deliberate planning. The modern American oil and gas supply 
chain was made possible by the steady hand and patient capital 
of the American Government. The diversification of our domestic 
energy supply will necessitate nothing less. We need a plan. We 
need to diversify our domestic energy supply. We are leaving 
gigawatts of energy and local good jobs on the table. All I ask 
is that we get to work.
    Thank you so much.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Biven follows:]

      Prepared Statement of Megan Biven, Founder, True Transition

    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, and distinguished 
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify here 
today. My name is Megan Biven, the founder of True Transition, an 
organization dedicated to American energy produced by American energy 
workers for the benefit of American communities. Prior to this, I 
served within the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy 
Management, where I performed programmatic policy analysis, oversaw 
socioeconomic studies, and helped execute offshore lease sales.

    I sit here today in an optimistic mood, because as divided as we 
Americans may seem to be, we actually do want the same things: Energy 
security, a healthy and clean environment, good and safe jobs, shared 
prosperity, and a future we can be proud to leave to our children. To 
me, these hopes and desires represent a strong foundation on which to 
build consensus.

    We are here to consider the staggered 5-year-program leasing 
schedule. I would like to suggest that this slowing down of the Gulf of 
Mexico conveyor belt presents an opportunity to assess the efficacy and 
future of our nation's offshore energy program. This also provides time 
for this body to commit to a coherent national energy policy, which at 
the time of this testimony, we do not have.

    To the issue of our present energy policy, I ask the Committee to 
consider some history. We sometimes forget that we are the 
beneficiaries of deliberate planning. The modern American oil and gas 
supply chain was made possible by the steady hand and patient capital 
of the American Government. In the earliest days of oil and gas 
production, the industry was at risk of committing ``competitive 
suicide'' and state and federal governments intervened to set 
production limits and oversee shared pipeline use saving the early 
industry from itself. Today, private oil and gas producers still enjoy 
the preferential tax treatment of intangible drilling costs and many 
other public subsidies. During World War 2, the American Government 
constructed a 1,340-mile pipeline to transport oil from Texas to the 
Midwest and over 30 new refineries. The arsenal of democracy was 
financed by the people.\1\ The earliest Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) 
infrastructure was made possible by the Surplus Property Act of 1944 
\2\ which made available to industry the military crafts and 
technologies as surplus war assets. This was all pursued with the 
explicit understanding that domestic production of energy was a public 
good that necessitated public leadership. And indeed today's leasing 
program is a vestige of that principle. American regulation has 
consistently cradled and nurtured the oil and gas industry and 
continues to do so to this today.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Wilson, Mark R. Destructive Creation: American Business and the 
Winning of World War II: American Business and the WInning of World War 
II. University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia. 2016.
    \2\ Austin, Diane. History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in 
Southern Louisiana Volume I: Papers on the Evolving Offshore Industry. 
OCS Study MMS 2008-042 https://espis.boem.gov/final%20reports/4530.pdf
    \3\ Isser, Steve. The Economics and Politics of the United States 
Oil Industry 1920-1990: Profits, Populism, and Petroleum. Routlege 
1996.

    The OCS Gulf of Mexico leasing program, with its biannual sales, is 
a fragment of an inherited policy of 1970s Project Independence. 
Project Independence focused on shoring up American resources and 
building American capacity, establishing the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve and implementing the Crude Oil Export Ban. Our current posture, 
however, is one increasingly focused on export of American natural gas, 
and thanks to the 2015 Congressional repeal, crude oil. American 
exports of crude oil have increased by 878% (Figure 1) since the 
repeal.\4\ Indeed, in a time period of less than two months, we export 
more crude oil than the entire 2022 Strategic Petroleum Reserve 
emergency withdrawal.\5\ Exports of natural gas increased by 507% 
(Figure 2).\6\ Natural gas supplies 40% of our nation's electrical 
needs, and yet, last year we experienced the largest annual increase in 
average residential electricity spending since the Energy Information 
Administration began calculating it in 1984.\7\ If we are going to pit 
American offshore wind destined to power American homes versus natural 
gas or crude oil destined for foreign shores, I believe the American 
people deserve an honest answer on why fossil fuel production destined 
for export should be privileged over domestic wind energy destined for 
domestic use. Indeed, as we bring back and rebuild American 
manufacturing and supply chains, what is our energy security plan? Is 
our new role simply a provider of raw commodities we dutifully send 
abroad?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Exports of Crude 
Oil. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/
LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCREXUS2&f=M
    \5\ Crude oil exports: 3,576 thousand barrels per day; SPR FY 2022 
Emergency Sale: 180 million barrels
    \6\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. Natural Gas 
Exports. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9130us2a.htm
    \7\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. residential 
electricity bills increased 5% in 2022, after adjusting for inflation. 
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56660#

                                Figure 1
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                                Figure 2
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    .epsThen there is the question of jobs. Production on the OCS has 
doubled in the last decade primarily from hitting deeper fields and the 
rise of more efficient production technologies. But in Louisiana, the 
staging ground for the OCS, direct employment in ``oil & gas 
extraction'' fell by 27% and jobs for ``drilling oil & gas wells'' 
plummeted by 62% between 2008 and 2019.\8\ The energy transition has 
not even begun, but a jobs transition has. These trends have proven 
consistent onshore as well (Figures 3 & 4). The industry has learned to 
produce more with less workers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ ICF. The Economic Impact of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry in 
Louisiana. October 2020. Submitted to: The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil 
& Gas Association (LMOGA) & American Petroleum Institute (API). https:/
/www.lmoga.com/assets/uploads/documents/LMOGA-ICF-Louisiana-Economic-
Impact-Report-10.2020.pdf

                                Figure 3
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                Figure 4
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    .epsBecause Louisiana is my home state and the beating heart of the 
OCS, I'd like to highlight some additional statistics: Louisiana is one 
of the top three natural gas-producing states \9\ and first in the 
nation for poverty.\10\ Louisiana's 15 oil refineries account for 
nearly one-fifth of the nation's refining capacity and Louisiana is 
47th for median household income.\11\ Louisiana is home to the nation's 
third-largest coal exporting port and Louisiana also boasts the highest 
incarceration rate in the world.\12\ Louisiana's ports handled 35% of 
the nation's total natural gas exports in 2022 and Louisiana has the 
fifth highest infant mortality rate and second highest maternal death 
rate in the nation. Louisiana is home to two of the four storage sites 
that make up the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and Louisiana has the 
ninth highest cancer death rate in the nation and fourth lowest overall 
life expectancy nationally.\13\ While there are 29 petrochemical plants 
and 12 LNG export facilities in various stages of planning in 
Louisiana, just under a dozen home insurance companies have fled the 
state leaving tens of thousands of Louisiana homeowners without 
insurance or premiums so high, they are sliding into poverty. It is 
painfully clear that someone is profiting from Louisiana's resources, 
just not most Louisianans. And these statistics do very little to tell 
the story of profound human suffering our fellow citizens endure 
everyday. What does a number tell you about an infant robbed of a 
mother before it is ever held?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. State Energy Profile. 
https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=LA https://www.eia.gov/state/
print.php?sid=LA
    \10\ U.S. Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service. 
Poverty Statistics. https://data.ers.usda.gov/
reports.aspx?ID=17826#Pb61db6aa7e3c4868a2dc24abd42cede6_3_229iT3
    \11\ St. Louis Fed. Real Median Household Income by State, Annual 
2022 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=259515&rid=249
    \12\ Prison Policy Initiative. States of Incarceration: The Global 
Context 2021. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html
    \13\ Center for Disease Control & Prevention. Life Expectancy at 
Birth by State. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/
life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Louisiana does receive a share from offshore production due to 
revenue sharing legislation like the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act 
(GOMESA), but because of severe coastal land loss caused by oil and gas 
fluid withdrawal and saltwater intrusion from the thousands of miles of 
pipelines that cut across our state, we must allocate those funds to a 
coastal restoration program to restore that damage. In the last 9 
years, the Gulf OCS produced just under 6 billion barrels of crude oil, 
with an estimated $76 billion in profit siphoned from our public 
resources.\14\ I often wonder what Louisiana would be like had we 
instead pursued a Norwegian-like model, with a state controlled energy 
company like Equinor and a more robust ownership share of its 
Continental Shelf resources. Established in 1990, the Government 
Pension Fund of Norway currently has over $1 trillion in assets, or 
$250,000 per Norwegian citizen.\15\ Part of those profits are derived 
from American oil and gas resources.\16\ The United States is the 
largest source of production for the company outside of Norway, and 
Equinor is one of the largest producers in the Gulf of Mexico. I 
suppose we can all sleep soundly knowing that there is a public benefit 
to our resources, just not ours.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ U.S. Energy Information Administration. Profit estimates were 
calculated on break-even prices between $70 and $45. http://
www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s =MCRFP3FM2&f=M
    \15\ Government Pension Fund Global. Norges Bank. https://
www.nbim.no/
    \16\ Upstream Online. Equinor still sees US Gulf of Mexico as vital 
to its production base, but mostly as a minority partner. https://
www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/equinor-still-sees-us-gulf-ofmexico-
as-vital-to-its-production-base-but-mostly-as-a-minoritypartner/2-1-
1287792
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It's my hope we won't make this same mistake for offshore wind. The 
diversification of our energy portfolio will demand nothing less than 
what was previously required for oil and gas, and I would recommend an 
even more muscular state involvement. Today, Orsted is 50.1% owned by 
the Denmark government, 7% combined with Denmark pension funds and the 
world's largest developer of offshore wind energy. Through Orsted, the 
Danish government is taking ownership of the emerging offshore energy 
industry, even in the United States. Companies like Orsted bring a 
tremendous amount of expertise and institutional knowledge to the 
United States which is a net positive. But we should also invest in our 
own institutions and people. Instead of foreign firms selling our wind 
and oil back to us, why not chart a different course? There is no 
reason why the United States government can't own and operate its own 
energy companies for the benefit of the American public. State owned 
entities can shore up strategic supplies and capacity, invest more into 
research and development, build large capital assets like offshore wind 
installation vessels, and commit to longer time horizons than investor 
owned companies constrained by transnational market whims. They can 
also retain workforces during periods of volatility. We can either 
invest in ourselves or we can allow others to profit from us. Perhaps 
we can take advantage of this staggered leasing schedule to commit to a 
bipartisan energy diversification plan and marshall those resources?
    To the issue of our existing OCS oil and gas program. I would like 
to highlight two issues that pose a great risk to the American public: 
the oil and gas industry's asset retirement obligations and safety and 
transparency on the shelf. True Transition recently conducted a 
national survey of American oil and gas workers. The results, which 
include responses from over 1,600 American oil and gas workers, 
revealed troubling attitudes towards safety.\17\ For Gulf Coast states, 
37% of respondents said they would hesitate to raise a workplace safety 
issue for fear of employer reprisal and 38% said they had been ordered 
to engage in unsafe working practices against established safety 
protocols. We should sit with those figures. I certainly have. The 
workers standing between you and another Deepwater Horizon, do not feel 
they can do their job safely. Offshore operations can pose pronounced 
risks, especially because of shore distances from hospitals. Between 
2012 and 2020, the oil and gas fields in federal waters of the Gulf of 
Mexico witnessed 188 reported collisions, 1,525 reported fires, and 
2,080 reported injuries.\18\ In a 2021 investigation, reporter Sara 
Sneath found that offshore oil and gas worker deaths were under-
reported by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Sneath 
found that the ``agency does not count offshore fatalities that occur 
in state waters, or deaths that occur while workers are in transport to 
offshore facilities. They don't count deaths that happen on offshore 
platforms that aren't work related, either, even though the remoteness 
of offshore platforms makes it more difficult to seek medical attention 
and workers often stay on platforms for two weeks at a time.'' \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ True Transition. The Future of Energy & Work in the United 
States: The American Oil & Gas Worker Survey. https://
www.truetransition.org/research-reports
    \18\ BSEE Offshore Incidents Statistics. https://www.bsee.gov/
statsfacts/offshore-incident-statistics
    \19\ Sneath, Sara. Offshore oil and gas worker fatalities are 
underreported by federal safety agency. Southerly. August 2021. https:/
/southerlymag.org/2021/08/18/offshore-oil-and-gas-workerfatalities-are-
underreported-by-federal-safety-agency/
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    At the root of this declining safety culture is that many of the 
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's safety regulations can 
be overly deferential to the operator, and outsources regulatory 
standards to a non-governmental entity and industry trade group, the 
American Petroleum Institute.\20\ Regulation on the OCS is more red 
carpet than red tape, and it's our workers who pay the price. As an 
example, all OCS operators with manned vessels develop their own 
Emergency Evacuation Plans, where companies establish their own 
triggers for evacuation. After the recent maritime tragedy of the 
Seacor Power, and near misses (Transocean Deepwater Asgard and the 
Noble Globetrotter II), it is my concern that lessees are intentionally 
ignoring estimated evacuation time countdowns and plans to save on day 
rates, intentionally putting their workers in harm's way.
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    \20\ U.S. Coast Guard 33 CFR Sec. 146.140--Emergency Evacuation 
Plan. COMDTINST 16000.76 September 2021
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    I see a few immediate actions that this body can take to improve 
its governance of this program. First, direct the United States Coast 
Guard and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in 
collaboration with the National Offshore Training Center to create 
uniform safety regulations and training curriculum that is reviewed and 
updated on a routine basis and required for all OCS participant 
companies and workers regardless of vessel flag, citizenship of workers 
(including temporary visa workers), incarcerated workers engaged in 
transitional work programs, and regardless of worker job duties. As we 
enter into a new era of multi uses which includes offshore wind, this 
provides a timely opportunity to create actual standards and clear 
metrics, so that whether a worker is on an OSV bound for a new offshore 
wind array, or for an oil and gas deepwater installation, he knows he 
will receive standard training and be protected by the same set of 
rules.
    I also recommend that BSEE and Coast Guard create and issue a 
universal ``trigger'' to cease activity and commit to evacuation 
procedures. These recent disasters demonstrate a tension between the 
boardroom and the ship bridge, and there should be no room for craven 
calls from a Houston highrise while American workers face danger on a 
stormy Gulf. Finally, Louisiana recently passed ``Jacob's Law'' which 
mandates GPS beacons for offshore aircraft travel to and from Louisiana 
heliports. I recommend that BSEE build upon this success and require 
that all operators provide Personal Life Beacon (PLB) to all OCS 
workers, regardless of their work function. Following a marine 
disaster, the Coast Guard relies upon computer models to calculate 
where a person can drift over a period of time to focus rescue efforts. 
The price of current marine tested PLBs are nominal and would save time 
and resources locating lost mariners. They would also save priceless 
lives. It is time to make these pieces of equipment mandatory on the 
OCS.
    Now onto the oil and gas industry's asset retirement obligations, 
in other words, the junk they left behind. The Lease Agreement signed 
between companies and the American government states that lessees must, 
``permanently plug such wells, remove such platforms and other 
facilities, decommission such pipelines, and clear the seafloor of all 
associated obstructions created by the lease operations.'' I am sad to 
report that this has not been the case. Since the 1960s, the Department 
of the Interior has allowed the offshore oil and gas industry to 
discard 97% of pipelines (18,000 miles) on the seafloor when no longer 
in use.\21\ (Figure 5) A majority of these were approved in the last 13 
years, just as companies stampeded out of the Gulf of Mexico and into 
the Texas and New Mexico Permian Basin. Assuming 40-feet segments at a 
weight of 15-tons each, this amounts to 35.6 million tons (78 billion 
pounds) of pipe serving no commercial or public purpose. They do 
however leak and shift, and obstruct sand dredging for coastal 
restoration, and preclude other future commercial uses like offshore 
wind.\22\
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    \21\ U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-21-293 Offshore Oil 
and Gas: Updated Regulations Needed to Improve Pipeline Oversight and 
Decommissioning. Published: Mar 19, 2021. Publicly Released: Apr 19, 
2021. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-293
    \22\  
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    There is good news, however. Interior can simply enforce the legal 
contract companies agreed to: no more decommissioning in place. They 
can also make companies who had previously been allowed to decommission 
pipelines in place to follow the Lease Agreement and clear the seafloor 
of all associated obstructions created by the lease operations. 
Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland may determine that a 
pipeline is no longer useful and require its immediate decommissioning. 
The Bureau of Safety & Environmental Enforcement Gulf of Mexico 
Regional Supervisor also has clear legal authority to order the removal 
of a pipeline decommissioned in place.\23\ To make this 
administratively feasible, I recommend the establishment of an ``Idle 
Iron Pipeline'' program that prioritizes removal based on alternative 
uses or potential for hazards.
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    \23\ 30 CFR Sec. 250.1754
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    And there is even better news. The economic activity spurred by 
stepping up enforcement of these obligations could be significant. As 
already mentioned, production on the OCS has doubled in the last decade 
primarily from more efficient production technologies. A consequence of 
these efficiency gains is that the complex web of shipyards and 
fabrication yards and offshore supply vessels and service companies in 
the Gulf sit idle and lay off employees. Many of these service 
companies see offshore wind and coastal restoration as a natural pivot 
for their services and workforces, and they are ready to get to work.
    Enforcing decommissioning obligations could begin immediately, 
utilizing workforces and equipment today. A 2022 study estimates that 
decommissioning Gulf of Mexico infrastructure ``would create 5,265 jobs 
per year to complete this work, including direct workers, contractors, 
and suppliers.\24\ After taking into account household spending in the 
economy, this P&A expenditure would be associated with more than 10,500 
jobs per year, economy-wide.'' This is not counting the scrap value of 
materials rotting and rusting in the Gulf, particularly steel. The 
Department of Energy found that steel scrap can eliminate up to 90% of 
the total energy consumed by integrated steelmaking by reducing the 
quantity of virgin iron required.\25\ Just one offshore platform can 
boast tens of thousands of tons of high quality steel that can be 
reused for land building dredge boats, offshore wind turbines, and 
other industrial structures. There's a second industrial act just 
waiting on the seafloor.
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    \24\ Agerton, Mark. Considering a Federal Program to Permanently 
Plug and Abandon Offshore Oil and Gas Wells. https://
www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OffshoreWells-
CGEP_Report_111022.pdf
    \25\ Lowder, Travis. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Scrap 
Supply Chains and Residual Impacts: Benchmarking Price Implications 
Today and Into the Future. May 2022.
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    Finally, I request that this body craft legislation to push the 
costs of these liabilities back onto the industry that profited from 
our shared public resources. To deal with already orphaned wells, 
discarded infrastructure, and decommissioned-in-place pipelines without 
a solvent owner to pursue, I strongly suggest that Congress pass 
legislation that establishes and implements an industry-wide levy that 
is deposited into a dedicated trust fund, similar to the federal 
Abandoned Mine Land Fund. In 2022, OCS crude oil production exploded to 
636 million barrels of crude oil with an estimated gross $60.1 billion 
in revenue. This is almost the exact estimated high end decommissioning 
cost for the entire Gulf of Mexico. Either the industry that has 
profited from these resources pay, or it forces the tab upon the 
American public.
    The public can and should expect more public benefits from its 
public resources. American energy workers should expect the highest 
quality and safest workplaces on the planet. The United States should 
lead on training, compensation, and standards. America should be the 
vanguard of energy diversification and climate mitigation. In no way 
does holding offshore wind hostage benefit the American people. The 
diversification of our domestic energy supply will necessitate nothing 
less than united, steady governance and the might of our Government. We 
need a plan. We need to diversify our domestic energy supply and secure 
our future. We are leaving gigawatts of energy and local, good jobs on 
the table. All I ask is that we get to work.
Additional Safety Recommendations
OCS Safety Standardization.
    BSEE's safety regulations can be overly deferential to the operator 
and outsources regulatory standards to the American Petroleum 
Institute's RP 75 as BSEE's mandated safety practice. The document 
itself is only available for purchase and some smaller contractors on 
the OCS have reported that they do not have enough employees to qualify 
to purchase API documents or the prices are too high. We recommend that 
USCG and BSEE in conjunction with the National Offshore Training Center 
(NOTC) create a uniform safety training curriculum that is reviewed and 
updated routinely and required for all OCS workers regardless of vessel 
flag, citizenship of workers (including temporary visa workers), 
incarcerated workers engaged in transitional work programs, and 
regardless of worker job duties. Offshore workers should be required to 
know how to swim and be able to pass a swim test prior to offshore work 
certification. We recommend that BSEE and USGS create a certification 
for training centers so that operators know which training centers 
provide the approved training. We also recommend that the Interior 
require that operators shoulder the cost of these training requirements 
and not individual workers. Seacor Power survivor, Brandon Aucoin, told 
federal investigators about his harrowing experience waking up to the 
vessel capsizing.\26\ He explained that his safety training prepared 
him for his ordeal in the Gulf and saved his life. He also revealed 
that one of the men, one of the vessel cooks, did not have a life 
jacket as a group of five were making their way out of the sinking 
vessel. It is imperative that all people working in the OCS are 
prepared for potentially life threatening conditions. As we enter into 
a new era of multi uses which includes offshore wind, this provides a 
timely opportunity to review these requirements and standardize these 
safety requirements. Potential offshore wind Project Labor Agreements 
and workforce development bidding credits provide an opportunity for 
the Interior to craft uniform accreditations and requirements for 
working offshore. BOEM and BSEE must determine what will constitute a 
successful workforce training program and what constitutes ``fully 
trained personnel.'' This implies strict criteria and clear metrics. 
Because the notice of sale explicitly says that training of employed 
personnel would not qualify, this implies funding third-party 
educational programs--again these programs must conform to a government 
developed set of criteria.
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    \26\ USCG. Exhibit 224--NTSB Interview Transcript--Aucoin--
Survivor--Cardinal. https://www.news.uscg.mil/Portals/11/Headquarters/
Investigations/Seacor-Power/Exhibit%20224%20-
%20NTSB%20Interview%20Transcript%20-%20Aucoin%20-%20Survivor%20-
%20Cardinal.pdf? ver=2Kbp6OiH90msOTdP_Y4JhQ%3d%3d
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Uniform Evacuation Trigger.
    There is evidence that the frequency of tropical systems is 
increasing, as is the rapid intensification of these storms.\27\ All 
OCS operators with manned vessels are required to develop and implement 
an ``Emergency Evacuation Plan.'' \28\ Operators of drillships and 
mobile drilling units (MODUs) are required to submit a Stacking Plan 
which includes the means to evacuate personnel in case of emergency and 
emergency response procedures to the US Coast Guard Officer in 
Charge.\29\ These regulations are largely deferential to operators, 
allowing companies to establish their own triggers for evacuation: 
``Describe the recognized circumstances, such as fires or blowouts, and 
environmental conditions, such as approaching hurricanes or ice floes, 
in which the facility or its personnel would be placed in jeopardy and 
a mass evacuation of the facility's personnel would be recommended.'' 
30,31 We recommend that BSEE and USCG create and issue a 
``trigger'' to cease activity and commit to evacuation procedures. We 
recommend that BSEE and USCG create a process for captains to check in 
with district offices and secure official endorsement for decisions 
that protect the lives of their crew. We recommend the creation of a 
documentation template for these approvals to protect vessel captains 
and/or crew from retaliation or wrongful termination based on those 
decisions.
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    \27\ Tom Knutson, Senior Scientist, NOAA/GFDL. Global Warming and 
Hurricanes An Overview of Current Research Results. https://
www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
    \28\ U.S. Coast Guard 33 CFR Sec. 146.140--Emergency Evacuation 
Plan. COMDTINST 16000.76 September 2021
    \29\ U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety: Outer Continental Shelf 
Activities. https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/OCSNCOE/References/
COMDTINSTs/CIM-16000.76-OCS-Activities. PDF?ver=KXStelJ-e-
XS5VzhMBweeA%3d%3d
    \30\ U.S. Coast Guard 33 CFR Sec. 146.140--Emergency Evacuation 
Plan. COMDTINST 16000.76 September 2021
    \31\ Sneath, Sara. Oil Workers On Foreign-Flagged Ships Are At The 
Mercy of Corporations. May 2022. https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/oil-
workers-foreign-flagged-ships-130004587.html
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Mandatory OCS Life Beacons.
    We recommend that BSEE require that all operators provide PLBs-
Personal Locator Beacons to all OCS workers, regardless of their 
industry or work function. Following a marine disaster, the US Coast 
Guard relies upon computer models to calculate where a person can drift 
over a period of time to focus research and rescue efforts. As the 
organization, Jason's Beacon (created in honor of Seacor victim, Jason 
Willis Krel) describes, ``There are so many stories from survivors 
where in broad daylight boats passed right by them and planes or 
helicopters flew right over them before they were finally rescued, 
sometimes days later, and these boats and planes were searching 
specifically for them.'' \32\ The price of current marine tested PLBs 
are nominal and would save time and resources locating lost mariners. 
They would also save priceless lives. It is time to make these pieces 
of equipment mandatory on the OCS.
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    \32\ https://www.jasonsbeacon.org/
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OCS Census.
    We recommend that BSEE and BOEM prioritize a joint study through 
the Environmental Studies Program characterizing workforce demographics 
and employee-employer relationships. The OCS GOM census and survey 
should assess all OCS workers, from drilling to production crews, to 
OSV dining and sanitation workers to underwater welders. How many 
workers are temporary visa workers (OCS-B), and how many are employed 
via state prison transitional work programs, how many are 1099 and how 
many are full time employees? What are safety conditions like--were 
workers provided adequate training and do they feel comfortable raising 
safety issues? We would be glad to coordinate in the development of 
this survey.
Additional Orphaned Liabilities Recommendations
Fit to bid:
    Using existing authority, increase Legal, Technical, and Financial 
Qualifications to Bid on OCS Oil & Gas Leases. The Outer Continental 
Shelf Lands Act grants the Secretary discretion to determine 
``qualification for participation.'' There must be a more stringent 
minimum threshold to hold an oil and gas lease on the OCS. In a very 
real way, the American government via the Bureau of Ocean Energy 
Management functions like a bank. It extends credit on the resources of 
the United States to private entities. Just as a bank must evaluate a 
loan applicant's risk before granting a loan, so too must BOEM evaluate 
a potential lessee's risk before allowing that company to participate 
in the program.
Cash on Hand:
    Require individual, sinking trust funds (bankruptcy remote) with 
BSEE as beneficiary for each permitted well, pipeline and supporting 
infrastructure. A requirement like this would force companies to 
actually set aside enough money to safely retire their wells once 
they're done producing. Trust funds should be pegged to BSEE's P90 
forecasts. When a lessee has ceased operations, the money will be 
there. If a lessee becomes insolvent, the money will be there.

     Lessees would be able to choose either a lump-sum payment 
            upon establishment of the trust that reflects the estimated 
            full costs of decommissioning, or pay an annual payment 
            into a sinking trust fund until it reaches the estimated 
            full cost. Everyone should set aside a little bit each 
            month for retirement. It's time the oil and gas industry is 
            forced to prepare for the end as well.

     Lessees opting for an annual trust fund payment must also 
            purchase a full cost surety bond for each individual well. 
            The surety bond required amount is gradually reduced as the 
            amount in the trust fund with annual payment increases. The 
            surety bond amount should also be pegged to BSEE's P90 
            forecasts. The two accounts will be inversely proportional 
            to minimize the federal government's exposure to the 
            leases's risks. The less funds in the trust fund, the more 
            surety that is required. As the holdings in the trust fund 
            increase, the required annual bonding amount also 
            decreases.

Orphaned Liability Trust Fund:
    To deal with the millions of already abandoned and inactive wells, 
Congress should pass legislation that establishes and implements an 
industry-wide levy that is deposited into a dedicated trust fund, 
similar to the federal Abandoned Mine Land Fund. While estimates vary, 
it could cost anywhere between $60 to $435 billion to P&A the nation's 
abandoned and orphaned wells.\33\ Either the industry that has profited 
from these resources pay, or it forces the tab upon the general public.
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    \33\ American Carbon Registry, ``Methodology for Quantification, 
Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of Greenhouse Gas Emissions 
Reductions from Plugging Abandoned and Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells,'' 
April 2022, p.40. Retrieved from https://americancarbonregistry.org/
carbon-accounting/standards-methodologies/plugging-abandoned-orphaned-
oil-and-gas-wells/1-0-acr_ aoog_peer_review_04272022.pdf
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Idle Iron Pipeline:
    30 CFR Sec. 250.1754 establishes clear authority to the BSEE 
Regional Supervisor to order the removal of a pipeline decommissioned 
in place if that pipeline constitutes an obstruction. These pipelines 
provide no physical or material benefit to the American public, but 
they do impose an artificial limit on alternative commercial and 
national security uses. To make this administratively feasible, we 
recommend the establishment of an ``Idle Iron Pipeline'' program that 
prioritizes removal based on alternative uses or potential for hazards.
Parental Liability:
    BOEM issues a Notice to Lessees that requires Lessees to provide a 
parent company guarantee for subsidiaries. The NTL should make it clear 
that parent companies are directly, jointly and severally liable for 
asset retirement obligations. Parent companies derive traceable 
financial benefit from OCS leases, and their direct liability should be 
unambiguous. It is against common sense and the spirit of the OCS 
program to allow a regime where multinationals or any company can only 
derive benefits and then stick the liability onto the American public. 
This provision should be added as a Lease Stipulation in the Notice of 
Lease Sale documents and OCS Lease Agreements.
Office of Well Thrift Supervision:
    Congress creates this entity to function as a pass-through 
receivership in which all assets, and certain nondeposit liabilities of 
original oil and gas institutions are instantly ``passed through the 
receiver'' to a newly chartered federal mutual association, the 
American Well Corporation. The American Well Corporation, housed in the 
Department of the Interior, can take over orphaned leases and operate 
in the American public's interest. Appointed DOI representatives will 
act as Conservators of leases, running them in the public's interest, 
winding down insolvent wells, and cleaning up inactive and depleted 
wells and supporting infrastructure with the proceeds from remaining 
production. Interior can directly employ production and support staff 
or contract out to approved operators. Instead of settling for just a 
percentage of profits, Interior can secure 100% of those profits to 
address orphaned OCS infrastructure and for the United States Treasury. 
And/ or Interior can allocate a percentage or all production to the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will likely require legislation to 
enact, but we recommend that just as BSEE has requested additional 
funds to address orphaned liabilities in its recent Budgetary 
Justifications, that so too, we recommend that BOEM and BSEE will make 
the case through its Congressional Affairs Office that an American Well 
Corporation will be in the interest of the American public. True 
Transition will gladly assist in any of those efforts.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much for your testimony. Our 
last witness is Ms. Liz Klein, who is the Director for the 
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management located right here in 
Washington, DC.
    Director Klein, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF LIZ KLEIN, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY 
                   MANAGEMENT, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Klein. Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, 
and members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before 
you today to discuss the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's 
development of the 2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf 
Oil and Gas Leasing Program. My name is Liz Klein, and I am the 
Director of BOEM at the Department of the Interior.
    This Administration is committed to ensuring safe and 
responsible domestic oil and gas production that meets the 
country's energy needs while minimizing impacts to the 
environment. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, or OCSLA, 
requires BOEM to prepare and periodically revise an oil and gas 
leasing program that includes a proposed schedule of oil and 
gas lease sales for the 5-year period following approval of the 
program. This is, of course, referred to as the National OCS 
Oil and Gas Leasing Program, or the National OCS program, 
sometimes the Five-Year Plan.
    As specified by Section 18 of OCSLA, preparation and 
approval of a national OCS program is based on the Secretary of 
the Interior balancing specific requirements and factors, and 
selecting the size, timing, and location of OCS lease sales 
that best meet regional and national energy needs and consider 
the impact of oil and gas exploration on the marine, coastal, 
and human environments.
    The proposed final program includes three potential OCS oil 
and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico program area, 
scheduled for 2025, 2027, and 2029. These three potential lease 
sales were chosen because they have the greatest resource 
potential and net benefits with the least potentially 
significant impacts and costs to society. The Secretary 
believes that this proposed schedule will best meet national 
energy needs for the next 5 years under existing laws and 
policies.
    The three potential sales in the proposed final program 
will also enable the Department to continue to issue offshore 
wind leases, in compliance with the provision of the Inflation 
Reduction Act that prohibits BOEM from issuing new offshore 
wind leases unless it is offered at least 60 million acres for 
oil and gas leasing on the OCS in the previous year. This 
proposed final program thus ensures continued progress toward 
the Administration's goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 
2030.
    The area considered for leasing has been narrowed to the 
Gulf of Mexico OCS, where there is existing production and 
infrastructure. This area includes the portions of the western, 
central, and eastern Gulf of Mexico planning areas not 
currently under Presidential withdrawal. The Cook Inlet Program 
area in Alaska, which has generated low industry interest for 
many years, including in Lease Sale 258, has not been included 
in the potential lease sale schedule.
    Following the publication of the proposed final program and 
final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, a 60-day 
waiting period is required before the Secretary can formally 
approve the program and finalize a Record of Decision. The 
Secretary has committed to issuing that final decision on the 
next national OCS program by the end of calendar year 2023.
    BOEM also recently published a call for information and 
nominations in the Federal Register regarding the potential 
future Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sales included in the 
next national OCS program. Simultaneously, BOEM also published 
a Notice of Intent to prepare a Programmatic Environmental 
Impact Statement under NEPA to analyze the potential impacts of 
a representative sale in the Gulf of Mexico during the next 
national OCS program, as well as the ongoing and potential 
associated site and activity-specific oil and gas related 
approvals. Collectively, these actions will allow BOEM to move 
forward on implementing the new program.
    Chairman Stauber and Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, thank 
you again for the opportunity to be here today to discuss 
BOEM's efforts to create an oil and gas leasing program that 
will meet the nation's energy needs while minimizing impacts to 
the human, marine, and coastal environment. The national OCS 
program remains a core element of the Administration's 
continued commitment to ensuring a clean and low-cost energy 
future, one that is sustainable and benefits all Americans.
    I look forward to working with the Subcommittee on these 
important issues, and I am happy to answer any questions that 
you or members of the Subcommittee may have. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Klein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Elizabeth Klein, Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy 
              Management, U.S. Department of the Interior

Introduction

    Chairman Stauber, Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez and members of the 
Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the 
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) development of the 2024-2029 
National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program. My 
name is Elizabeth Klein, and I am the Director of BOEM at the 
Department of the Interior. The Administration is committed to ensuring 
safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production that meets the 
country's energy needs while minimizing impacts to the environment.
Developing the Next National OCS Program

    The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) requires BOEM to 
prepare and periodically revise an oil and gas leasing program that 
includes a proposed schedule of oil and gas lease sales for the five-
year period following approval or reapproval of the program. This is 
colloquially referred to as the National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing 
Program (National OCS Program). As specified by Section 18 of OCSLA, 
preparation and approval of a National OCS Program is based on the 
Secretary of the Interior balancing specific requirements and factors 
and selecting the size, timing, and location of OCS lease sales that 
best meet regional and national energy needs and consider the impact of 
oil and gas exploration on the marine, coastal, and human environments.
    The Proposed Final Program includes three potential OCS oil and gas 
lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Program Area, scheduled for 
2025, 2027, and 2029. The size, timing, and location of these three 
potential lease sales were chosen because they have the greatest 
resource potential and net benefits with the least potentially 
significant impacts and costs to society. The Secretary believes that 
this proposed schedule will best meet national energy needs for the 
next five years under existing laws and policies.
    The three potential sales in the Proposed Final Program will enable 
the Department to continue to issue offshore wind leases in compliance 
with the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that prohibits 
BOEM from issuing new offshore wind leases unless BOEM has held an 
offshore lease sale by which BOEM has offered at least 60 million acres 
for oil and gas leasing on the OCS in the previous year, ensuring 
continued progress towards the Administration's goal of 30 gigawatts of 
offshore wind by 2030.
    The area considered for leasing has been narrowed to the GOM OCS 
where there is existing production and infrastructure. This area 
includes the portions of the Western, Central, and Eastern GOM planning 
areas not currently under Presidential withdrawal. The Cook Inlet 
Program Area in Alaska, which has generated low industry interest for 
many years including in Lease Sale 258, has not been included in the 
potential lease sale schedule.
    Following the publication of the Proposed Final Program and Final 
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a 60-day waiting 
period is required before the Secretary can formally approve the 
program and finalize the Record of Decision. The Secretary has 
committed to issuing a final decision on the 2024-2029 Program by the 
end of calendar year 2023.
    BOEM recently published a Call for Information and Nominations in 
the Federal Register regarding the potential future GOM oil and gas 
lease sales included in the 2024-2029 National OCS Program. 
Simultaneously, BOEM also published a Notice of Intent to prepare a 
Programmatic EIS to analyze the potential impacts of a representative 
lease sale in the GOM during the 2024-2029 National OCS Program, as 
well as ongoing and potential associated site- and activity-specific 
oil- and gas-related activity approvals.
    Collectively, these actions will allow BOEM to move forward on 
implementing the new Program.
Recent Leasing Activities

    U.S. offshore oil and gas resources currently remain an important 
component of our domestic energy portfolio and contribute to the 
Nation's economic output. BOEM has held 10 lease sales since the start 
of the 2017-2022 Program, generating approximately $1.5 billion in 
bonus payments. As BOEM prepares to implement the next National OCS 
Program, we continue to comply with Congressional direction included in 
the IRA regarding specific oil and gas lease sales. BOEM has worked 
expeditiously to schedule and hold Lease Sales 258, 259, and 261 by the 
dates mandated in the IRA. BOEM held Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 on 
December 30, 2022, resulting in one bid of $63,983 and the issuance of 
one lease. BOEM held Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 259 on March 29, 2023. 
That sale generated $263.8 million in high bids for 313 tracts and 
resulted in 295 leases covering 1.57 million acres.
    Lease Sale 261 was originally scheduled for September 27, 2023, in 
line with the IRA deadline to hold the sale by September 30, 2023. In 
accordance with recent court rulings, BOEM published a revised final 
notice of sale in the Federal Register on October 6, 2023, has 
rescheduled the sale for November 8, 2023, and will offer over 72 
million acres for lease. Consistent with those recent court rulings, 
BOEM will include lease blocks that were previously excluded from the 
earlier-scheduled sale due to concerns regarding potential impacts to 
the Rice's whale in the Gulf of Mexico. BOEM will also remove portions 
of a related stipulation meant to address potential impacts to the 
Rice's whale from the lease terms for the leases that may be issued as 
a result of Lease Sale 261.
Financial Assurance

    In addition to planning for the next National OCS Program, BOEM has 
proposed changes to modernize financial assurance requirements for the 
offshore oil and gas industry to better protect American taxpayers from 
incurring the costs associated with the industry's responsibility to 
decommission offshore wells and infrastructure no longer in use.
    Recent corporate bankruptcies in the offshore oil and gas industry 
and increasingly aging infrastructure have underscored the need for 
financial assurance reform. If BOEM holds insufficient financial 
assurance at the time of bankruptcy, the government may have to perform 
the decommissioning, with the cost being borne by the American 
taxpayer. Delays in decommissioning can lead to environmental damage 
and other risks. BOEM currently holds $3.3 billion in bonds, which 
cover approximately 8% of the estimated $42.8 billion in estimated 
offshore decommissioning liabilities.
    The proposed rule would establish two metrics by which BOEM would 
assess the risk any company poses for the American taxpayer.
    First, to predict financial distress accurately and consistently, 
BOEM proposed using credit ratings from a nationally recognized 
statistical rating organization or a proxy credit rating generated 
through a statistical model. BOEM would require companies without an 
investment grade credit rating to provide additional financial 
assurance.
    Second, BOEM proposed consideration of the current value of the 
proved oil and gas reserves on the lease itself when determining the 
overall financial risk of decommissioning, given that any lease with 
significant reserves would likely be acquired by another operator that 
would then assume the liabilities in the event of bankruptcy.
    The proposed regulatory changes would provide additional clarity 
and reinforce that current grant holders and lessees bear the cost of 
ensuring compliance with lease obligations, rather than relying on 
prior owners to cover those costs.
    BOEM received over 2,100 public comments on the proposed rule. We 
are currently reviewing comments and anticipate issuing a final rule by 
early next year.
Conclusion

    Chairman Stauber and Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, thank you again 
for the opportunity to be here today to discuss BOEM's efforts to 
create an oil and gas leasing program that will meet the Nation's 
energy needs while minimizing impacts to the human, marine, and coastal 
environment. The National OCS Program remains a core element of the 
Administration's continued commitment to ensuring a clean and low-cost 
energy future--one that is sustainable and benefits all Americans. I 
look forward to working with the Subcommittee on these important 
issues. I am happy to answer any questions that you or members of the 
Subcommittee may have.

                                 ______
                                 

    Questions Submitted for the Record to Ms. Klein, Director, BOEM

Ms. Klein did not submit responses to the Committee by the appropriate 
deadline for inclusion in the printed record.

              Questions Submitted by Representative Graves
    Question 1. Director Klein, in every lease awarded, whether for 
traditional energy or renewable energy, BOEM includes language that 
states: ``lessees must conduct all activities in the leased area 
consistent with all applicable laws and regulations.'' How does BOEM 
conduct oversight to ensure activities conducted on the lease, whether 
conducted by the lessee or contractor of the lessee, are in full 
compliance with applicable law, particularly with respect to those laws 
outside the jurisdiction of the Department?

    Question 2. Further, what are the procedures if BOEM is made aware 
that a lessee has contracted with a foreign company that is operating 
in violation of U.S. law? If BOEM determines a lessee is not conducting 
all activities legally, what is the range of remedies BOEM has at its 
discretion?

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Director Klein. The Chair will now 
recognize Members for 5 minutes of questions, and I now 
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    Director Klein, on average, previous administrations have 
only held about half of the lease sales they have included in 
their respective 5-year plans. The plan put forth by the Biden 
administration includes three lease sales over the next 5 
years. How many lease sales will the Biden administration hold 
over the next 5 years?
    Ms. Klein. The proposed final program puts out a schedule 
of three lease sales. Those are scheduled to take place in 
2025, 2027, and 2029. The Secretary, as I have mentioned, has 
committed to putting out a final decision on that proposed 
final program before the end of the year.
    We have started the NEPA process for the first lease sales 
in 2025.
    Mr. Stauber. Director Klein, real quick, just yes or no, 
are you planning on holding three lease sales?
    Ms. Klein. The proposed final program plans to hold three 
lease sales.
    Mr. Stauber. The proposed is to hold three. Are you 
guaranteeing three?
    Ms. Klein. I don't know that I will be here in 2025, so I 
can't say what will happen at that time. But the proposed final 
program proposes three lease sales.
    Mr. Stauber. OK. By not providing the firm answer, it is 
very clear that the Administration is refusing to commit to 
holding offshore lease sales.
    Director Klein, how long does the NEPA process typically 
take for offshore lease sales?
    Ms. Klein. The NEPA process to evaluate the potential 
impacts of proposed lease sales in the 5-year plan generally 
takes anywhere from 16 to 18 months, possibly 2 years. We have 
started that process and feel confident we can complete it 
before the scheduled lease sale in 2025.
    Mr. Stauber. Did you say you started the NEPA process on 
these proposed lease sales, these three?
    Ms. Klein. Yes, we issued a Notice of Intent at the same 
time that we issued the proposed final program.
    Mr. Stauber. And what date was that on?
    Ms. Klein. September 29, I think, was the date we issued 
the proposed final program.
    Mr. Stauber. OK, September 29 of 2023?
    Ms. Klein. Yes.
    Mr. Stauber. So, we are looking at least to 2025 and 
beyond.
    Ms. Klein. We feel confident that the NEPA process that is 
necessary to hold a lease sale in 2025 can be completed in time 
to hold that sale in 2025.
    Mr. Stauber. I just want to remind you that BOEM's Deputy 
Director shared with this Committee that the process can take 
as long as 2 years. And you would agree with that?
    Ms. Klein. Sometimes NEPA processes can take 2 years. The 
process that we have started with the Notice of Intent to 
evaluate these sales, we feel confident we can complete that in 
2025.
    Mr. Stauber. Director Klein, when does the Biden 
administration plan to finalize its 5-year plan?
    Ms. Klein. As I mentioned, the proposed final program, 
there is a 60-day required period before a Record of Decision 
can be issued. The Secretary is committed to issuing a decision 
before the end of this year.
    Mr. Stauber. So, we could say December 31?
    Ms. Klein. I am hoping to avoid the holidays.
    Mr. Stauber. OK, before the holidays. Based on BOEM's own 
logic and math, if the plan is finalized before the holidays 
and the NEPA process begins immediately, as you said, in 
September, the first lease sale isn't going to realistically be 
held until December 2025 or beyond. Again, this is based on 
BOEM's own math.
    Director Klein, will you commit to holding a lease sale in 
2025, as outlined in the 5-year plan?
    Ms. Klein. We have started the NEPA process for any 
potential lease sales that might take place in the 5-year plan, 
including that first one in 2025.
    I think we have also indicated our keen interest, in order 
to meet the Administration's offshore wind goals, that we wish 
to hold offshore wind lease sales.
    Mr. Stauber. Director Klein, thank you for your response. 
You can't commit to that. I really hope this Administration 
commits to a lease sale in 2025. But based on its track record, 
I remain incredibly skeptical.
    Mr. Moses, can you please provide some background on the 
importance of the Cook Inlet for Alaskan and American energy 
security?
    Mr. Moses. As I indicated a little earlier in my testimony, 
the Cook Inlet area supplies the natural gas to the Rail Boat 
Region of Alaska, where the great majority of our residents 
live. Nearly half of our residents are in Anchorage alone, and 
that goes up to Fairbanks, through Wasilla, the Mat-Su, and 
other areas. And that supply is dwindling, and there is no firm 
estimate of exactly when that might be gone. But that is 
critical to cheap energy prices for Alaskans.
    Being from Fairbanks originally, the cost of heating up 
there with oil is four to five times what it is----
    Mr. Stauber. So, Mr. Moses, real quick, is it your 
understanding that the Alaskans didn't want sales in the Cook 
Inlet?
    Mr. Moses. No, we----
    Mr. Stauber. OK, I have 5 seconds left. Do you believe the 
Administration was actually listening to Alaskans when it 
sought public comment from them?
    Mr. Moses. We do not. As I stated earlier, I----
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Because I am keeping 
myself on time, too.
    Representative Ocasio-Cortez, you are up for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Biven, in your testimony you highlight that oil and gas 
production on the Outer Continental Shelf has doubled in the 
last decade. Yet, in Louisiana direct employment in oil and gas 
extraction has fallen by 27 percent. Correct?
    Ms. Biven. Yes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And you also write that jobs for 
drilling oil and gas wells have plummeted by 62 percent between 
2008 and 2019. Correct?
    Ms. Biven. Yes, that is from an LMOGA report.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. That is staggering. When we are talking 
about just job creation in general, the job development of this 
industry has been plummeting.
    We have heard witnesses tout the job benefits of offshore 
oil and gas, but it is undeniable that the workforce is already 
in transition. Ms. Biven, you highlight several key 
opportunities, though, for the Federal Government to support 
this workforce and spur economic activity. Could you outline 
what some of those opportunities are?
    Ms. Biven. Absolutely. I want to provide a little context 
on why those jobs are declining. The industry is just getting 
better at producing more oil and gas. They are hitting deeper 
plays, and they just require less service companies and less 
workers. So, that is why there has been a bipartisan, 
enthusiastic support for offshore wind in Louisiana.
    But decommissioning of retired infrastructure no longer in 
use provides a huge opportunity for workforce, specifically 
those 18,000 miles of pipelines that are decommissioned in 
place. They are serving no commercial purpose, they are just 
sitting on the sea floor. And those operators agreed with the 
Federal Government to remove them, and that provides an 
opportunity for workers today. The Secretary of the Interior 
can order those companies today to remove them, and that will 
put boats that are docked to work, that will put workers to 
work.
    And then, of course, there are idled oil and gas wells, 
there are a lot of opportunities.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So, we can start the process of spurring 
an enormous amount of job creation just by enforcing and 
demanding the cleanup of these 18,000 miles of pipeline, 
correct?
    Ms. Biven. Absolutely.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And these decommissioning and coastal 
restoration jobs can help bridge the gap as we stand up the 
offshore wind industry in the Gulf, which offshore oil and gas 
workers are particularly well equipped to take up.
    Can you expand on how the Federal Government can support a 
transition for these oil and gas workers to ensure that good, 
dignified, family-sustaining jobs and clean energy like 
offshore wind can continue?
    Ms. Biven. For sure. And indeed, it is a pre-condition for 
a lot of the work that we want to do. Those pipelines, those 
unplugged oil and gas wells, they are in the way of bio areas 
for coastal restoration projects. If we want big dredge boats 
out there dredging for sand to rebuild Louisiana's coast, we 
need to remove that infrastructure.
    But a sustained commitment to diversification and 
decarbonization of our economy is necessary for a just 
transition. And one idea we have proposed is the creation, for 
instance, of a new Federal Administration, the abandoned well 
administration, because we know that there are thousands of 
unplugged oil and gas wells both onshore and offshore. And what 
we are seeing is that, even though we are providing an ample 
amount of Federal funds, that states are still finding it 
difficult to have the equipment and people to do this work 
swiftly. And we propose the creation of a new administration to 
directly employ displaced oil and gas workers to actually have 
the infrastructure and to have field offices to do this work in 
perpetuity, because we know that the volume is huge, and the 
failure rate of plugged jobs will necessitate that.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Ms. Biven. I wanted to pivot 
a little bit into terms of wages and worker conditions. We have 
been seeing lately that, even as profits increased, average 
wages in the industry are declining. And what we are seeing, as 
well, is that half of some of these folks surveyed in a 
document I would like to submit to the record have lost their 
jobs at least once prior to 2020.
    Ms. Biven, do you believe that there is sufficient 
government oversight on offshore worker safety?

    Ms. Biven. No.

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And how do you believe we can change 
this?

    Ms. Biven. We could craft actual uniform rules, instead of 
delegating to an industry trade group to create those rules and 
to the operator themselves.

    It is very deferential to the operator, and workers don't 
have a union, they really have no one on their side if 
something unsafe is happening. So, uniform, predictable rules 
and a regulator that is empowered to enforce them, not just to 
suggest them, I think would go a very long way.

    And this staggered leasing schedule provides us an 
opportunity to pause and really evaluate the program.

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Wonderful. Thank you so much for your 
insight.

    I yield back to the Chair.

    Mr. Stauber. Representative Ocasio-Cortez, did you want to 
submit something for the record?

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Yes.

    Mr. Stauber. Without objection.

    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.

    [The information follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

                                 ****

The full document is available for viewing at:

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II06/20231018/116435/HHRG-
118-II06-20231018-SD006.pdf

                                ------                                

    Mr. Stauber. We are now going to recognize the Chairman of 
the Full Committee, Representative Westerman, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Chairman Stauber, and thank you 
to the witnesses. I will try to be brief.
    Director Klein, the Department issued the 2024-2029 Five-
Year Plan. For the first time since 1996, there won't be a 
sale. There is no sale proposed in 2024. Why is that?
    Ms. Biven. The proposed lease sale schedule that the 
Secretary included in the proposed program after she evaluated 
all the factors that she is required to under Section 18 of 
OCSLA determined that those sales best meet our nation's energy 
needs while balancing the range of factors she is required to 
consider.
    Mr. Westerman. So, an administrative failure. The Inflation 
Reduction Act requires the Secretary to hold an offshore oil 
and gas lease sale within a year, before offering a single 
offshore wind lease. That is not an interagency memo, that is 
not a directive from the White House. That is a law passed by 
the House, passed by the Senate, and signed by the President.
    With only three offshore oil and gas lease sales scheduled 
to occur by 2029, what led the Administration to abandon the 
goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you very much for that question. We have a 
robust list of projects in the queue right now and additional 
offshore wind lease sales scheduled for next year. We feel 
confident in meeting the target.
    Mr. Westerman. How are you going to follow the law and do 
that if you don't have a gas or oil lease by----
    Ms. Klein. Thank you for that question. We have an oil and 
gas lease sale scheduled to take place on November 8, so we 
will have another year to hold offshore wind lease sales 
through----
    Mr. Westerman. November 8 of this year?
    Ms. Klein. Of this year. And then we have a full year to 
hold additional offshore wind lease sales next year.
    Mr. Westerman. So, you are going to have a lease sale on 
November 8 and award a sale.
    Ms. Klein. Lease Sale 261 in the Gulf of Mexico is 
scheduled for November 8, yes.
    Mr. Westerman. How will having only three more lease sales 
hurt the goal of 30 gigawatts of wind by 2030, or how would it 
help that?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you. We have projects in the queue right 
now, a number of which are under environmental review. Our 
estimates show those projects alone will reach 27 gigawatts by 
close to 2030. We have additional projects that we expect to be 
proposed to us in the coming months, so we feel confident we 
are going to hit our 30 gigawatt offshore wind goal by 2030.
    Mr. Westerman. In Table 8 of your plan, it concluded that 
having five lease sales emits fewer carbon equivalent emissions 
than no lease sales because we are substituting dirtier, 
foreign-produced energy sources and not having to transport 
them halfway around the world. It then concludes that having 10 
lease sales emits fewer carbon emissions than having none.
    It is also better for national security, better for jobs, 
and better for the economy. So, why are we not having 10 sales 
or 5 sales if you have a goal of reducing global emissions?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you for that question. I think the 
analysis shows that when you consider the full life cycle, 
greenhouse gas emissions from the no-sale option versus other 
potential scenarios we have outlined in the proposed plan, that 
the emissions scenarios look very similar and don't fully 
account for the Administration's goals of meeting net-zero 
pathways by 2050.
    So, as I mentioned, the Secretary determined that the three 
lease sales that we have scheduled in the proposed final 
program best meet our energy needs, fully consider the whole 
range of factors under OCSLA, and will help us meet our climate 
goals.
    Mr. Westerman. And I believe, when you cut through all the 
administrative jargon that the American public and certainly 
this Committee, at least part of this Committee, realizes that 
this Administration has an all-out attack on domestic energy 
and on domestic mining, which is illustrated in the policies 
that you are putting forth and which American consumers are 
paying the price for.
    Mr. Moses, can you provide some background on what the Cook 
Inlet means to Alaska energy security, and how the Governor 
sees Alaskan natural resources and their role in American 
energy and national security?
    Mr. Moses. Thank you for the question.
    Again, the Cook Inlet Region supplies the vast majority of 
natural gas to the majority of Alaskan citizens and is critical 
to our energy costs for our citizens and, to go a little 
further, for our mineral development. That is also another 
problem we are having with the Ambler Mining District, which 
under law it is supposed to be----
    Mr. Westerman. Mr. Moses, my time is expired. I am going to 
have to yield back.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Representative Kamlager-Dove, you are up for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to 
the witnesses for being here today when there is nothing else 
going on.
    Director Klein, a few weeks ago, the Subcommittee held a 
hearing on a bill that would force BOEM to hold four offshore 
oil and gas lease sales over 2 years with no environmental 
review. Can you briefly tell us why it is essential that BOEM 
conduct analysis specific to each lease sale?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you for that question. We conduct 
environmental review at each stage in the leasing process, so 
we are in the midst of finishing up the environmental review 
for the program itself.
    And then, for the leases that are scheduled in the Five-
Year Plan, we then conduct an environmental review, which, as I 
mentioned, we started last month in order to do the more site-
specific analysis of where those lease sales will occur, and 
ensure that we are fully evaluating the potential impacts of 
the sales themselves and any potential mitigations or issues 
that we should take into account as we move closer to the lease 
sale stage.
    Ms. Kamlager-Dove. It sounds important to me, in terms of 
gathering comprehensive data and information preceding the 
sales. Thank you for that.
    Ms. Biven, in your testimony you cite some distressing 
statistics about Louisiana's offshore oil and gas industry. I 
will read a couple out loud so we can be on the same page, if 
you don't mind.
    Louisiana is a top-three natural-gas-producing state, yet 
first in the nation for poverty. Louisiana is home to one-fifth 
of the nation's refining capacity, yet 47th for median 
household income. Louisiana's ports handled 35 percent of the 
nation's total gas exports in 2022, yet has the fifth highest 
infant mortality rate and second highest maternal death rate. 
There are 29 petrochemical plants and 12 LNG export facilities, 
yet homeowners insurance is becoming so hard to come by that 
families are sliding into poverty.
    Ms. Biven, do you believe that most Louisianans are 
benefiting from the offshore oil and gas and petrochemical 
industries?
    Ms. Biven. No, ma'am, I do not.
    Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Who is benefiting instead?
    Ms. Biven. Shareholders, people at the top. People who 
don't live in Louisiana.
    Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you for that. I see that this is a 
pattern repeated nationwide. What I have been reading, and I 
may be confused, but what I have been reading is that the 
United States is producing more oil than ever before, that in 
fact it is the highest in the world, and we are on track to set 
a new record this year. Also, oil prices increasingly have more 
to do with global market drives than on our U.S. production.
    So, Ms. Biven, can you explain or expand on the dynamics 
between American production and exports of oil and natural gas, 
and how those dynamics affect American consumers?
    Ms. Biven. Absolutely. What we are seeing is that we are 
pivoting from a posture of energy security for Americans to one 
of export, and it is being framed as we are being constrained, 
and that is what is causing the increase in prices. But the 
volatility is completely due to global financial trading.
    Some oil and gas majors make more from their trading floors 
than the actual sale of the commercial products, and that is 
putting American citizens at a very distressing place. Even 
though we are the largest producer of oil and gas, even though 
we have all of these resources, regular Americans don't see 
those benefits.
    I would love a sovereign wealth fund for our country, would 
love a greater ownership of those resources. I often think, 
what would it be like if we were to be like Norway, if we had a 
sovereign wealth fund, if we had a state-owned oil and gas 
company like Equinor, where each citizen has $250,000 per 
citizen, and you have, I think it is $2 trillion in that fund. 
People don't realize that the second source of highest revenue 
for that fund comes from the Gulf of Mexico. So, we have no 
problem with a public benefit for these resources, just not our 
public.
    Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you for that, and I am so glad you 
brought up Norway. I was there some years ago and we got into 
that. And I thought that was an incredibly resilient sort of 
posture for them to take.
    Mr. Moses, I am not going to ask you, but I am dying to ask 
if you can see Russia from your house. But I am going to, in 
fact, have to yield back my time to the Chair.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you very much. Next up, Representative 
Graves for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Graves. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Witnesses, I want to thank you for being here today. It is 
good to see a few of you again, and great to meet a few of you 
for the first time.
    First of all, I want to ask Mr. Faucheux. There was talk 
about Louisianans not benefiting from energy production in 
terms of jobs and economic activity. As I recall, I think one 
in every seven jobs in the state of Louisiana is tied back to 
the energy industry. Is there a benefit to our economy, to the 
state's economy?
    Mr. Faucheux. Congressman, I would point out that more than 
a quarter of the state's economy is based in the energy 
industry and the oil and gas industry.
    And you are correct, you don't have to go far in any 
Louisiana community to find multiple generations of people who 
have built families, careers, and livelihoods on the oil and 
gas industry. Louisianans want this industry. They have 
supported it and look forward to continuing to be able to see 
future generations of their families participate in it.
    Mr. Graves. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I continue to just be so confused by 
statements that I hear out of members of this Committee and 
then facts. Let's go through a few things.
    I have heard over and over again about how greenhouse gases 
are a priority in terms of reducing greenhouse gases. When I 
look at BOEM's own assessment, and I quote, ``In a net-zero 
world, as demand for fossil fuels declines, domestic oil and 
gas production from lower carbon intensity fields such as those 
in the OCS''--because those are the lowest carbon-intense 
barrels--``could play a more important role in meeting that 
demand than they do currently. OCS fields could also help 
ensure U.S. energy security by reducing import reliance from 
foreign producers, most of which tend to also be higher carbon 
emitters than the U.S.'' Said another way, we need to be 
producing more in the OCS, not less.
    Going back to the Carter administration, they put out for 
lease 100 times more acres than have been done under this 
Administration. You are talking about 3 lease sales, they did 
36 lease sales. And again, for higher acreage, larger acreage 
as well.
    So, all of this stuff, and we keep hearing all of these 
policies and, oh, this is all about greenhouse gases, when the 
reality is with Trump, greenhouse gases went down, and with 
Biden they went up. This year, they are probably going to go up 
again. So, we are failing on emissions. Let's be very clear. We 
are failing on the environment. Your own analysis says that 
actually using more OCS production would be better for the 
environment.
    Now let's take it a step further, what is happening with 
the individual family members. When President Biden took office 
the lowest gasoline prices in Louisiana were $1.74 a gallon. 
The national average today, I believe, is $3.57. In Louisiana, 
the lowest price today is probably around $2.96, not $1.74, but 
$2.96.
    According to the Census Bureau, and I have seen all sorts 
of statistics, but according to the Census Bureau, one in every 
four American families have been unable to make ends meet. 
Since Biden has taken office, when you take things like 
inflation, higher interest rates, higher grocery costs, higher 
utility and gasoline costs, $700 per family per month. These 
are the people that we are all here to represent.
    Let me say it again. As a result of this Administration's 
policies, $700 per family per month is the higher cost that 
they are paying. We have the ability to bring prices down, just 
like our Chairman noted in the opening statement. All of this 
is a result of squeezing supply. Demand is not changing. Prices 
are skyrocketing as a result.
    And then let's take a look at who is benefiting. We have 
heard a lot of people talking about Iran and this $6 billion 
negotiation, the $6 billion that we freed up in funds, giving 
to Iran when Iran is out there funding terrorists like Hamas. 
Here is reality. What is happening when we don't produce 
energy? Iran ends up filling the void.
    You know the $6 billion that I am aggravated about? Let me 
tell you what I am really pissed off about. I am pissed off 
about the fact that this translates to $60 billion in 
additional funds that Iran has profited from as a result of the 
ignorant energy policies of this Administration, $60 billion, 
10 times the $6 billion that the Administration released for 
Iran, giving it to Iran. What are they doing with Hezbollah, 
Islamic jihad, Houthis, and Hamas with $60 billion in 
additional profits?
    We failed on affordability. We are empowering terrorists, 
and we are failing on the environment. This is absolutely 
incredible. These policies make no sense based upon math and 
science. None, and based upon your own analysis.
    Mr. Chairman, the Ranking Member noted wildfires in 
Louisiana. She is exactly right. Unfortunately, she left out 
the fact that they were actually caused by arson. I would like 
to submit for the record an article----
    Mr. Stauber. Without objection.

    [The information follows:]

Largest wildfire in Louisiana was caused by arson, state officials say

ABC News

                                 *****

The largest wildfire in Louisiana history that has destroyed tens of 
thousands of acres was caused by arson, state officials announced.

The Louisiana State Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF) said 
it concluded its investigation into the wildfires in Beauregard Parish 
and found that the Tiger Island Fire was deliberately caused.

Officials are offering a $2,000 reward to anyone who has information 
that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who 
caused the fire, the LDAF said in a press release Saturday.

The Tiger Island Fire began on Aug. 22 in a wooded pine plantation and 
has destroyed more than 31,000 acres of land and damaged 20 homes and 
structures, LDAF officials said.

The fire is 50% contained as of Sunday, according to the National 
Wildfire Coordinating Group.

Louisiana State Department of Agriculture and Forestry officials 
couldn't provide specific details about the cause of the wildfire, as 
it's an active investigation, but told ABC News that investigators 
found the fire started in a secluded area on forested property.

The fire season in Louisiana this year has been unparalleled due to 
extreme temperatures and dry conditions, according to The Associated 
Press.

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


.epsThis photo provided by Louisiana Department of Agriculture and 
Forestry shows scorched woodlands near Merryville, La., at the Tiger 
Island Fire, Aug., 30, 2023.

Alison Coons/AP, FILE

There were about 600 wildfires in the state in August, with officials 
anticipating that number to grow, according to The AP.

``Louisiana is still facing unpredictable and dangerous conditions as 
we continue to fight wildfires across the state. This is a long-term 
event and until we get a significant amount of rain, we must remain 
vigilant,'' Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement Thursday. ``Our 
state is still a tinderbox and there are still fires popping up all 
over. Do not burn anything. We must do all we can to prevent the 
further spread of wildfires and ease the stress on our responders.''

About 60,000 acres of land have burned in Louisiana this year, 
according to The AP.

Louisiana declared a statewide burn ban Thursday to include any open 
flame outdoors. The State Fire Marshal's Office said people should not 
``burn anything'' until further notice, according to the NWCG.

``Citations and arrests are happening across this state in partnership 
with local and state law enforcement agencies,'' the NWCG said.

The Lions Camp Fire and wildfires in Rapides Parish were also a result 
of arson, according to the LDAF.

Officials have asked the public for help identifying a suspect or 
suspects who may have caused those blazes.

Louisiana state law defines simple arson as ``the intentional damaging 
by any explosive substance or the setting fire to any property of 
another, without the consent of the owner,'' and ``the starting of a 
fire or causing an explosion while the offender is engaged in the 
perpetration or attempted perpetration of another felony offense even 
though the offender does not have the intent to start a fire or cause 
an explosion.''

                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Graves. And secondly, Mr. Chairman, just for the 
record, the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which is our pressure relief 
valve for the Mississippi River when river levels are too high, 
was normally opened every 10 years. It was opened in 2016. It 
was opened in 2018. For the first time in history, it was 
opened twice in 2019, and it was opened in 2020. Therefore, 
this whole drought thing on the Mississippi River, we had 
record high water. It normally opens every 10 years, it opened 
five times in 6 years, the highest in history, showing that 
water levels were actually excessive in recent years, as well.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you.
    I see no colleague on the other side of the aisle is here, 
so Representative Tiffany, you are up for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Moses, we had testimony from an Alaskan just a couple 
of months ago, a Native Alaskan, I believe it was, who said 
life expectancy since 1980 has went up 13 years for the Native 
peoples that he represents up in Alaska. Does that surprise 
you?
    Mr. Moses. Not at all. I think not only for oil and gas 
development, mining development, you will see the economic 
improvement in those communities lifts all standards of life. 
So, it is not surprising at all.
    Mr. Tiffany. And is it your understanding it is the 
improvement of their lifestyle that has caused this 13-year 
increase in life expectancy?
    Mr. Moses. Absolutely.
    Mr. Tiffany. I mean, think about that, Mr. Chairman. I was 
stunned. I have to say I was stunned when I heard that data, 
this is a Native Alaskan, that their life expectancy went up 13 
years since 1980. It is incredible. Producing energy here in 
America can help people live a longer life, live a happier 
life.
    Mr. Seibel, do you think pipelines are important?
    Mr. Seibel. Absolutely.
    Mr. Tiffany. Do you think refineries are important?
    Mr. Seibel. Absolutely.
    Mr. Tiffany. Does the Southern Ute Economic Fund, do they 
rely on those refineries, pipelines, and other infrastructure 
to be able to get the product that you are producing to market?
    Mr. Seibel. Absolutely, it does.
    Mr. Tiffany. What do you say to other tribes that are 
opposed to any production or transport of hydrocarbons, of 
energy?
    Mr. Seibel. Any other tribe? As tribes we are really coming 
together for that self-determination, the right to govern 
ourselves. So, we are all on board, whatever God has blessed us 
with under our respective reservations, we encourage one 
another to develop your resources on your reservation. So, us 
Indians are getting together, and we are supporting one 
another. And when we do that, powerful things happen. And we 
are excited for that.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you for that.
    Ms. Klein, were you involved with the voluntary settlement 
agreement in regards to the Rice's whale back in July 2023?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you for the question. BOEM has taken some 
actions in order to try to protect the Rice's whale, which is a 
critically endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, including 
releasing a notice to lessees to undertake some recommended 
measures to try to protect the whale, including slowing vessel 
traffic speeds, not transiting through a certain area.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you. I have a follow-up. They are saying 
that they want to protect the Rice's whale. So, have you done 
some study on what is happening to whales on the East Coast, 
where some people are concerned, there is not solid proof yet, 
but there is great concern that there are a lot of whales that 
are washing up on the shores on our East Coast, and that might 
be because of the wind facilities that are being put up.
    Let me pose a question. Are you studying that?
    Ms. Klein. Thank you for the question. BOEM shares concerns 
about the unusual mortality event, and we----
    Mr. Tiffany. Are you studying that?
    Ms. Klein. We have an environmental studies program and a 
center for marine acoustics that is----
    Mr. Tiffany. Are you studying that specifically on the East 
Coast?
    Ms. Klein [continuing]. That is looking at the potential 
impacts of offshore wind on whales and marine mammals.
    Mr. Tiffany. OK. Thank you.
    Ms. Biven, I see you live in Vienna. Have you followed the 
increased use of coal in Germany?
    Ms. Biven. Yes, because they retired their nuclear fleet.
    Mr. Tiffany. Do you support nuclear?
    Ms. Biven. Yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. OK. And have you done an analysis of the life 
cycle of renewables, of what we call renewables?
    Ms. Biven. I have not personally carried out a life cycle 
of renewables. I am more familiar with oil and gas.
    Mr. Tiffany. We are retiring Ag land, for example, in my 
home state of Wisconsin. We are retiring Ag land and are 
converting it to wind and solar. Do you think that is a good 
public policy choice?
    Ms. Biven. I think they can co-exist in certain areas. It 
just depends on what is the best use for the area.
    Mr. Tiffany. Do you think it is good to retire productive 
agricultural land?
    Ms. Biven. Perhaps for the benefit of the soil. I don't 
know what the background for those decisions would be. It 
depends on a case by case.
    Mr. Tiffany. I am just going to close with this, Mr. 
Chairman. I thought the Ranking Member said it very well. She 
said we are seeking managed decline, and managed decline is 
exactly what is happening.
    My colleague Mr. Graves cited it very well. When you have 
Iran that is producing more oil as a result of us not producing 
it and turning it into bombs, we have to consider foreign 
policy also with issues like this. And they are turning it into 
weaponry that is destabilizing the Middle East as we speak, 
funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah. We see what is happening as a 
result of managed decline right here in the United States of 
America.
    We are declining on the world stage. Our economic well-
being is in decline, and it is directly tied to having 
affordable energy. When we have low energy prices in America, 
we have prosperity. When we have high energy prices, diesel 
fuel moves the world. When we have high energy prices, we have 
economic decline in America. And that is exactly what is 
happening on this Administration's watch.
    I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Stauber. Thank you, Representative Tiffany.
    Before I have closing comments, Representative Ocasio-
Cortez would like to put something in the record.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I would seek unanimous consent to submit 
to the record a reporting from Vox around the Louisiana 
wildfires.
    Mr. Stauber. Without objection.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.

    [The information follows:]

How Louisiana--one of the nation's wettest states--caught on fire

Even traditionally wet states are experiencing unprecedented wildfires.

Vox.com, August 30, 2023 by Li Zhouli

https://www.vox.com/climate/2023/8/30/23852363/louisiana-wildfires

                                 *****

An unprecedented series of wildfires is burning in Louisiana, making it 
the latest state to navigate a major natural disaster in recent months. 
Wildfires--though they take place in the state annually--aren't 
typically as frequent or as big as they have been this year.

Much like other places, Louisiana is experiencing record-breaking heat 
and dryness, which have made it easier for wildfires to proliferate. 
Both issues are likely being made worse by climate change, which 
contributes to higher temperatures and drier vegetation. And what we're 
witnessing this year is likely just the start: According to LSU 
researchers, wildfire risk in the state is expected to increase 25 
percent by 2050, with the magnitude of property damage poised to grow 
by more than 100 percent.

``Our state has never been this hot and dry and we have never had this 
many fires,'' Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards wrote in a recent social 
media post. And as Mike Strain, the state's commissioner for 
agriculture and forestry, told the Washington Post, ``This is probably 
the driest conditions, the most drought-prone conditions we've had in a 
generation.''

Currently, the largest fire in the state is the Tiger Island Fire, 
which covers more than 30,000 acres in southwestern Louisiana. 
Additionally, there are smaller fires across the state, including ones 
that have claimed two lives. Collectively, these fires have covered 
roughly 60,000 acres total, an area larger than the city of Washington, 
DC. They've led, too, to the declaration of a state of emergency in at 
least 17 Louisiana parishes and the evacuation of at least one town 
near the Texas border where the Tiger Island Fire is located.

Because the state has seen historically high temperatures and a massive 
drought, it's been easier for fires to ignite from phenomena like 
lightning strikes that otherwise might not trigger blazes. In 
Louisiana, fallen trees and brush from recent hurricanes, as well as 
large swathes of dry pine forests, have helped provide kindling. Human 
activity like improperly discarded cigarettes or outdoor cooking may 
have also played a role in some fires, Strain told NPR. The state 
currently has a burn ban in place to try to cut down on some of these 
potential causes.

Louisiana's unusual fire season comes as other places in the US and 
Canada have experienced similar conditions that have contributed to an 
unprecedented North American fire season. Earlier this month, the 
Hawaiian island of Maui also experienced a devastating wildfire buoyed 
by dry conditions and high winds. Canada, too, has seen an especially 
severe fire season due to how hot and dry it's been in different parts 
of the country.
The Louisiana wildfire adds to an unusual wildfire season

Extreme heat has been a major driver behind how severe this wildfire 
season has been for certain states in the US and provinces in Canada.

Historically, Louisiana, which is known for being a wetter state, has 
seen an average of 771 fires per year that burn an average of 8,217 
acres every year, according to the Washington Post. This year, it's 
seen 600 wildfires in just one month, with the acreage burned 
surpassing tens of thousands of acres.

At the same time, the state has also seen some of the hottest 
temperatures it's ever observed, with some places reaching upward of 
110 degrees Fahrenheit. In New Orleans, for example, temperatures 
usually hover around a high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit in August, but the 
city hit a record 102 degrees Fahrenheit this year. Some of this is due 
to a unique high-pressure heat dome that's trapped heat across many 
states in the south.

The impact of the heat has been compounded by the drought the state is 
in, which has meant significantly less rainfall than past years. Per 
the Louisiana Radio Network, the state has seen 20 inches less rain 
than it typically would at this time of year. Officials in Louisiana 
have emphasized that the state likely needs much more rain to combat 
the wildfires, which could continue through September, when it's 
expected to stay dry. ``This is not done. We expect a dry September. So 
we got to be prepared for this and all work together until the rain 
comes,'' Strain told reporters at a Tuesday press conference.

The Louisiana National Guard as well as resources from neighboring 
states, including over 1,000 emergency responders in the South, have 
been deployed to fight the fires. As of earlier this week, the largest 
Tiger Island Fire has been 50 percent contained, meaning firefighters 
feel like there's a strong enough boundary established to prevent that 
section of fire from spreading further. The focus on containment in the 
case of the Tiger Island Fire has been driven by the homes and people 
who could be harmed by it: It has destroyed 20 structures in 
Merryville, Louisiana, and could threaten other rural communities.

The challenges Louisiana faces with these fires are comparable to those 
in other areas, like Canada, which has seen similar dynamics fuel one 
of its worst fire seasons in years. In 2023, Canada has seen more than 
37 million acres burned, which is over double the area that's been 
affected in past years. More than 1,000 fires are still burning in 
Canada, with wildfire smoke drifting southward and affecting air 
quality in dozens of US cities.

According to a recent study from the World Weather Attribution, climate 
change has helped bolster the conditions needed for the fires in Canada 
to take place. Louisiana officials, including state climatologist Barry 
Keim, have pointed to climate change as a factor in their state's fires 
as well.

``Hot, dry and gusty conditions like those that fed this year's 
wildfires in eastern Canada are now at least twice as likely to occur 
there as they would be in a world that humans hadn't warmed by burning 
fossil fuels,'' writes Raymond Zhang in a New York Times story on the 
WWA study.

                                 ______
                                 

    Mr. Stauber. I want to thank the witnesses for their 
valuable testimony and the Members for their questions.
    The members of the Subcommittee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to 
these in writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of the 
Committee must submit questions to the Committee Clerk by 5 
p.m. on Monday, October 23. The hearing record will be held 
open for 10 business days for these responses.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Committee stands adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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