Kennedy introduces Lower Energy Costs Act in Senate

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today introduced the Senate companion to H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act.

“Energy production is the key to America’s national security and economic success. Louisiana has always served our country by helping bring affordable, sustainable energy to market, and this bill would remove the burdensome, bureaucratic handcuffs that have been hurting the industry and millions of Americans,” said Kennedy.

The Lower Energy Costs Act would:

• Create parity among energy producing states by increasing Louisiana’s and other Gulf states’ share of oil and gas revenues from 37.5 percent to 50 percent.
• Provide for 50 percent of revenues from offshore wind leasing to be shared with coastal states.
• Eliminate the two percent administrative fee assessed on the state share of onshore energy revenue.
• Secure America’s critical mineral supply.
• Affirm states’ primacy in regulating energy production on state and private land.
• Provide analysis on how refineries can become more efficient energy producers.
• Promote energy infrastructure and pipelines across international borders.
• Express disapproval of President Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline.
• Express congressional opposition to restrictions on the export of crude oil or other petroleum products.
• Repeal all restrictions on the import and export of natural gas.
• Improve interagency coordination for reviewing natural gas pipelines.
• Repeal the natural gas tax in Section 136 of the Clean Air Act.
• Repeal the greenhouse gas reduction fund in Section 134 of the Clean Air Act.
• Give homeowners more freedom to power their homes with their choice of energy options.
• Require the Interior Department to immediately resume quarterly lease sales on federal lands.
• Require the Interior Secretary to resolve any protest to a lease sale within 60 days.
• Require the Interior Department to make the permitting process for drilling more transparent by publishing relevant information online.
• Require the Interior Secretary to conduct all lease sales in the congressionally approved 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing five-year plan no later than Sept. 30, 2023.
• Require the Interior Secretary to issue the five-year oil and gas leasing program for 2023-2028 and to begin preparing for the subsequent oil and gas leasing program within 36 months of the first sale in the current program.
• Require yearly lease sales for geothermal energy.
• Require the Interior Department to grant any additional approvals for previously awarded coal leases required for mining to begin.
• End the existing moratorium on new coal leasing.
• Prohibit the Chinese Communist Party from acquiring any interest in lands leased for oil or gas under the Mineral Leasing Act or Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
• Direct the Interior Secretary to authorize geological and geophysical surveys related to oil and gas activities on the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf.
• Prevent the Bureau of Land Management from deferring the approval of permit applications because of agency formatting preferences.
• Require the Interior Secretary to process permit applications for drilling under a valid existing lease regardless of unrelated civil action.
• Expedite the approval process for gathering lines on federal lands that capture or transport oil, natural gas or related materials.
• Bar a mining claimant from operating on federal land if the Interior Secretary finds the claimant has a foreign parent company with a record of human rights violations and knowingly operated an illegal mine in another country.
• Prevent the Interior Secretary from stopping or slowing leasing and permitting activities on federal lands and waters that are open to energy and mineral development.
• Incentivize domestic production by rolling back burdensome fees on oil and gas development from the “Inflation Reduction Act.”

Full bill text is available here.