House Republicans’ American Petrostate Budget Plan Would Hand Over Public Lands to Big Oil and Gas
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources today are set to cede control over America’s public lands to the oil, gas, and mining industries, as they vote to move forward with the committee’s portion of an extreme Republican budget and tax bill packed with giveaways to corporations and the wealthy. In response, Public Citizen Research Director Alan Zibel said:
“Welcome to the American petrostate. This radical budget plan would transfer management and control of hundreds of millions of acres of national public lands to the oil and gas industry. The bill would require all quarterly lease sales of public lands across western states to offer every parcel of national public land that oil and gas executives choose for exploitation. It would also include an absurd ‘pay to play’ permitting provision allowing wealthy corporations to pay a fee to speed up permitting and exemptions from judicial oversight.
“The plan is fiscally reckless, returning royalty rates to what they were in 1920, and half of what New Mexico and Texas charge. Rolling back reforms to the antiquated federal oil and gas program would prevent taxpayers from receiving a fair return for the extraction of our public resources. Doing so would also impede sensible requirements that oil and gas companies clean up their messes.”
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