[House Report 118-839]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
118th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session } { 118-839
======================================================================
COLORADO ENERGY PROSPERITY ACT OF 2024
_______
December 10, 2024.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on
the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Westerman, from the Committee on Natural Resources,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
together with
DISSENTING VIEWS
[To accompany H.R. 6547]
The Committee on Natural Resources, to whom was referred
the bill (H.R. 6547) to prohibit the Secretary of the Interior
from implementing the Draft Resource Management Plan and Draft
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Colorado
River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field Office
Resource Management Plans, having considered the same, reports
favorably thereon with an amendment and recommends that the
bill as amended do pass.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Colorado Energy Prosperity Act of
2024''.
SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF PROPOSED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
PLAN AND FINAL SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT.
The Secretary of the Interior shall not implement, administer, or
enforce the Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement referred to in the notice of
availability titled ``Notice of Availability of the Proposed Resource
Management Plan and Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
for the Colorado River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field
Office Resource Management Plans, Colorado'' published by the Bureau of
Land Management on June 21, 2024 (89 Fed. Reg. 52082).
PURPOSE OF THE LEGISLATION
The purpose of H.R. 6547 is to prohibit the Secretary of
the Interior from implementing the Draft Resource Management
Plan and Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for
the Colorado River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field
Office Resource Management Plans.
BACKGROUND AND NEED FOR LEGISLATION
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages 244 million
acres of public lands, heavily concentrated (99 percent) in the
11 western continental United States and Alaska, along with 714
million acres of federal subsurface mineral estate.\1\ The
BLM's enabling statute, the Federal Land Policy and Management
Act of 1976 (FLPMA), established the agency's mission of
managing for multiple use and sustained yield, also commonly
referred to as the agency's multiple-use mandate.\2\ These
multiple uses include livestock grazing, energy and mineral
development, outdoor recreation, timber harvesting, watershed
protection, and maintaining wildlife and fish habitat. To
balance these multiple uses, BLM prepares resource management
plans (RMPs), which serve as the land-use plan for specific
units of BLM land. These plans begin with a formal, public-
scoping process to identify potential uses and management
considerations for each land unit.\3\ Next, a draft
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and draft RMP are
released, starting a 90-day comment period.\4\ Once comments
are considered and any changes are made, the BLM releases a
proposed RMP and final EIS, starting a 30-day protest period
for anyone who previously participated in the planning
process.\5\ Governors of impacted states also receive a 60-day
review period to address any inconsistencies with state and
local plans.\6\ Finally, the BLM State Director may approve the
RMP.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Federal Lands and Related Resources: Overview and Selected
Issues for the 118th Congress, Congressional Research Service, February
24, 2023, https://www.crs.gov/Reports/R43429.
\2\Id.
\3\How Plans are Developed, Bureau of Land Management, Accessed
March 7, 2024, https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/planning-
101/how-plans-are-developed.
\4\Id.
\5\Id.
\6\Id.
\7\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colorado is one of the states under attack from the Biden
administration's preservationist policies. Over 36 percent of
Colorado is federal land, and much of that area is under
restrictive land use designations such as wilderness areas,
national monuments, and areas of critical environmental concern
(ACECs).\8\ During the Obama administration, the BLM finalized
an RMP for the Colorado River Valley Field Office (CRVFO) and
Grand Junction Field Office (GJFO) on the Western Slope in
Colorado. In October 2018, a federal judge in Colorado ruled in
Wilderness Workshop v. BLM that the BLM ``did not closely study
an alternative that closes low and medium potential lands when
it admits there is an exceedingly small chance of them being
leased . . . therefore, BLM's failure to consider reasonable
alternatives violates NEPA.''\9\ On September 16, 2019, BLM
entered into a settlement agreement with the petitioners in
Wilderness Workshop where BLM agreed to ``prepare a
Supplemental EIS, which will address the deficiencies
identified by the Court.''\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\Hardy Vincent, Carol. Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data,
Congressional Research Service, February 21, 2020, https://www.crs.gov/
Reports/R42346.
\9\Wilderness Workshop v. BLM, 342 F. Supp. 3d 1145 (D. Colo.
2018), https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/36_-
_memorandum_opinion_and_order.pdf.
\10\Settlement Agreement, Case No. 16-cv-01822 (Sept. 16, 2019),
https://westernlaw.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/09/2016.09.16-CRV-RMP-
Settlement.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In June 2024, BLM published the Proposed RMP and
Supplemental EIS for the Colorado River Valley Field Office
(CRVFO) and Grand Junction Field Office (GJFO) on the Western
Slope in Colorado.\11\ The area covers approximately 1.56
million acres of public land and 1.92 million acres of federal
mineral estate.\12\ The RMP would close over 1 million acres to
fluid mineral leasing, expand two ACECs totaling 22,900 acres,
and designate an additional 7,000 acres as new wilderness study
areas.\13\ Throughout the RMP development process, BLM relied
on a severely outdated U.S. Geological Survey Resource
Assessment instead of a more recent assessment done in 2016,
which found that Colorado's Piceance Basin holds about 66.3
trillion cubic feet of gas, up from the 21 trillion estimated
in 2002.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\Notice of Availability of the Proposed Resource Management Plan
and Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Colorado
River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field Office Resource
Management Plans, Colorado, 89 FR 52082, June 21, 2024, https://
www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/21/2024-13452/notice-of-
availability-of-the-proposed-resource-management-plan-and-final-
supplemental-environmental.
\12\Id.
\13\BLM National NEPA Register, DOI-BLM-CO-G020-2022-0001-RMP-EIS,
Documents, Accessed September 16, 2024, https://eplanning.blm.gov/
eplanning-ui/project/2016085/570.
\14\BLM, Appendix S--Reasonable Development Scenario: Oil and Gas
in the Glenwood Springs Field Office, https://eplanning.blm.gov/
public_projects/lup/68506/110860/135765/34_Appendix_R_
RFDS_Oil_and_Gas.pdf. Assessment of Continuous (Unconventional) Oil and
Gas Resources in the Late Cretaceous Mancos Shale of the Piceance
Basin, Uinta-Piceance Province, Colorado and Utah, USGS, 2016. The
Associated Press, 40 Times More Natural Gas Underground In Colorado's
Piceance Basin, USGS Report Finds, June 9, 2016, https://www.cpr.org/
2016/06/09/40-times-more-natural-gas-underground-in-colorados-piceance-
basin-usgs-report-finds/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given BLM's egregious use of out-of-date information,
Representative Boebert introduced H.R. 6547 to prevent the
implementation of the Proposed RMP and Supplemental EIS for the
CRVFO and GJFO. This legislation prevents the Biden-Harris
administration from denying access to American energy resources
and making our nation more dependent on foreign energy sources.
The legislation would also protect the thousands of jobs in
Colorado that rely on the oil and gas industry and safeguard
access to public lands to develop and produce energy.
COMMITTEE ACTION
H.R. 6547 was introduced on December 1, 2023, by Rep.
Lauren Boebert (R-CO). The bill was referred to the Committee
on Natural Resources, and within the Committee to the
Subcommittee on Federal Lands. On March 20, 2024, the
Subcommittee on Federal Lands held a hearing on the bill. On
September 19, 2024, the Committee on Natural Resources met to
consider the bill. The Subcommittee on Federal Lands was
discharged from further consideration of H.R. 6547 by unanimous
consent. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) offered an Amendment in the
Nature of a Substitute designated Boebert_339 ANS. The
amendment in the nature of a substitute was agreed to by voice
vote. The bill, as amended, was ordered favorably reported to
the House of Representatives by a roll call vote of 24 yeas to
11 nays, as follows:
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
HEARINGS
For the purposes of clause 3(c)(6) of House rule XIII, the
following hearing was used to develop or consider this measure:
hearing by the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held on March 20,
2024.
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
Section 1. Short title
Section 1 names the bill the ``Colorado Energy Prosperity
Act of 2024''.
Section 2. Prohibition on implementation of Proposed Resource
Management Plan and Final Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement
Section 2 prohibits the Secretary of the Interior from
implementing, administering, or enforcing the Proposed Resource
Management Plan and Final Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement referred to in the Federal Register notice titled
``Notice of Availability of the Proposed Resource Management
Plan and Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for
the Colorado River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field
Office Resource Management Plans, Colorado'' published by the
BLM on June 21, 2024.
COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Regarding clause 2(b)(1) of rule X and clause 3(c)(1) of
rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the
Committee on Natural Resources' oversight findings and
recommendations are reflected in the body of this report.
COMPLIANCE WITH HOUSE RULE XIII AND
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT
1. Cost of Legislation and the Congressional Budget Act.
Pursuant to clause 3(c)(2) of House rule XIII and section
308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, and pursuant to
clause 3(c)(3) of House rule XIII and section 402 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the Committee has requested
but not received from the Director of the Congressional Budget
Office a budgetary analysis and a cost estimate of this bill.
2. General Performance Goals and Objectives. As required by
clause 3(c)(4) of rule XIII, the general performance goal or
objective of this bill is to prohibit the Secretary of the
Interior from implementing the Draft Resource Management Plan
and Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the
Colorado River Valley Field Office and Grand Junction Field
Office Resource Management Plans.
EARMARK STATEMENT
This bill does not contain any Congressional earmarks,
limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined
under clause 9(e), 9(f), and 9(g) of rule XXI of the Rules of
the House of Representatives.
UNFUNDED MANDATES REFORM ACT STATEMENT
An estimate of federal mandates prepared by the Director of
the Congressional Budget Office pursuant to section 423 of the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act was not made available to the
Committee in time for the filing of this report. The Chair of
the Committee shall cause such estimate to be printed in the
Congressional Record upon its receipt by the Committee, if such
estimate is not publicly available on the Congressional Budget
Office website.
EXISTING PROGRAMS
Directed Rule Making. This bill does not contain any
directed rule makings.
Duplication of Existing Programs. This bill does not
establish or reauthorize a program of the federal government
known to be duplicative of another program. Such program was
not included in any report from the Government Accountability
Office to Congress pursuant to section 21 of Public Law 111-139
or identified in the most recent Catalog of Federal Domestic
Assistance published pursuant to the Federal Program
Information Act (Public Law 95-220, as amended by Public Law
98-169) as relating to other programs.
APPLICABILITY TO LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
The Committee finds that the legislation does not relate to
the terms and conditions of employment or access to public
services or accommodations within the meaning of section
102(b)(3) of the Congressional Accountability Act.
PREEMPTION OF STATE, LOCAL OR TRIBAL LAW
Any preemptive effect of this bill over state, local, or
tribal law is intended to be consistent with the bill's
purposes and text and the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the
U.S. Constitution.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW
As ordered reported by the Committee on Natural Resources,
H.R. 6547 would make no changes in existing law.
DISSENTING VIEWS
H.R. 6547 would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from
implementing, administering, or enforcing the Proposed Resource
Management Plan (RMP) and Final Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) for the Colorado River Valley Field
Office (CRVFO) and Grand Junction Field Office (GJFO) Resource
Management Plans. The CRVFO RMP/EIS and the GJFO RMP/EIS were
developed in response to a court opinion and settlement
agreement that required the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to
consider additional alternatives and address concerns that the
agency did not reasonably consider alternatives that would
eliminate oil and gas leasing in certain areas with low to
moderate potential for development. The planning area for the
CRVFO RMP/EIS and the GJFO RMP/EIS encompasses approximately
1.56 million acres of public land and 1.92 million acres of
federal mineral estate.
On June 20, 2024, the BLM announced the publication of the
final EIS for both field offices. According to the agency's
press release, ``the proposed plan would close public lands
with no or low oil and gas potential to new oil and gas
leasing. New oil and gas leasing could continue on
approximately 85 percent of acres with high potential for oil
and gas resources in both field offices. Management of other
resources will continue to be consistent with the existing
resource management plan.''\1\ The updated planning documents
better incorporate the climate impacts of oil and gas
development and prioritize protections for conservation,
habitat preservation, river vitality, and areas of tribal and
historic significance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Bureau of Land Management, News Release, BLM proposes updates to
Grand Junction, Colorado River Valley area plans, BLM Colorado, Upper
Colorado River District Office, June 20, 2024. https://www.blm.gov/
press-release/blm-proposes-updates-grand-junction-colorado-river-val
ley-area-plans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.R. 6547 is a misguided attempt to prioritize industry
profits over people and communities. The updated planning
documents that cover BLM land in Western Colorado better
incorporate the multiple use values of the lands by striking a
balance between resource development and conservation.
Republican efforts to overturn and nullify ongoing planning
efforts contradict their calls for transparent management that
incorporates local perspective. BLM develops RMPs through an
iterative public process that incorporates feedback from a
range of stakeholders. In the case of Western Colorado, the
land administered by BLM is cherished for a variety of reasons.
It is not just a kill zone for extraction. The outdated RMP is
no longer adequate to address current conditions and needs to
be updated to meet today's needs, including conservation.
Congress must respect the open public process for updating RMPs
and should not be hastily passing legislation that sets a bad
precedent and undermines the public process in the name of
favoring extractive industries.
Even the title of this bill, the Colorado Energy Prosperity
Act, betrays the true incentive behind the effort--to bolster
extractive energy industries over conservation rather than
respect local perspectives.
Raul M. Grijalva,
Ranking Member.
[all]