U.S. Reps. David Valadao (R-CA) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have expressed concerns about a federal moratorium on energy development made between the State of California and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
“This poor decision comes at a time when fuel prices are still too costly, President Joe Biden’s administration continues to deplete our oil reserves, and inflation remains at a 40-year high,” the members wrote in an Aug. 29 letter sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “It appears your administration is playing political games and ignoring the high risk of bureaucratic red tape that will unnecessarily slow this review process down.”
Instead, they wrote, lawmakers should be streamlining processes and cutting red tape to increase domestic energy production and support local economies with jobs.
Specifically, the settlement reached earlier in August between the state and the BLM prohibits new oil and gas leasing in central California so that the BLM may conduct a supplemental environmental review.
In January 2020, California Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta, Gov. Newsom, and state agencies filed a lawsuit challenging a Trump-era plan to open up more than one million acres of public lands in central California to oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), without conducting an adequate environmental review of the plan’s impacts on California’s resources and residents, according to an Aug. 1 statement from the AG’s office.
But according to the letter signed by Reps. Valadao and McCarthy, along with U.S. Rep. Connie Conway (R-CA), the last environmental review conducted in 2019 was based on the best available science, went through a public notice and comment period, and was scrutinized during several public meetings. “Ultimately, these lands in the Central Valley were identified as suitable for development,” they wrote.
“This energy production setback will result in increased dependence on other nations, particularly our adversaries, for energy sources and prevent the United States from achieving energy independence,” wrote the lawmakers.
The members of Congress asked that Newsom withdraw the state’s litigation against the BLM and rescind the settlement agreement “due to the harm being done to our country by preventing adequate energy production in the Central Valley.”
“Reckless decisions like the ones that resulted in this settlement continue to jeopardize our hope of once again being an energy independent country,” they wrote. “These actions also do irreparable harm to our rural communities by increasing costs and stifling local economies that are already struggling.”