Texas Border Business
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reintroduced the Energy Freedom Act, in order to make America energy secure again by accelerating federal permitting for energy projects and pipelines, mandating new onshore and offshore oil and gas lease sales, approving pending liquified natural gas (LNG) export licenses, and generally speeding up solar, wind, and geothermal development. Upon reintroducing the bill, Sen. Cruz stated:
“Under President Joe Biden, American families are struggling with record high gasoline and home heating prices thanks in large part to the Biden administration’s hostility toward oil and gas. One study found $157 billion in energy investment is tied up in the federal permitting process. I’m reintroducing the Energy Freedom Act to reverse Biden’s actions so we don’t have to resort to tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This bill won’t cost taxpayers a dime, but it will provide the United States billions in revenue in the coming years by expediting permitting, leasing, safe new pipelines, and exports, and providing much needed regulatory certainty. The Energy Freedom Act would put a stop to the Biden administration’s sabotage of the American energy industry, and Congress should take it up without delay.”
What the Energy Freedom Act does:
- Prohibits the President from unilaterally enacting leasing bans on federal lands.
- Eliminates the Presidential permit requirement for cross-border energy projects.
- On federal lands and waters:
- Mandates regularly timed onshore and offshore oil, gas, wind, solar, and geothermal lease sales;
- Expedites permitting and adds certainty to the scope of environmental reviews; and
- Reduces foreign dependence on critical minerals by expanding access and streamlining permitting.
- Requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Department of Energy to review permits to export LNG within 60 days and immediately approves permits pending to export LNG through 2025.
- Requires FERC and the U.S. Army Corps to complete permitting for interstate natural gas projects in one year or less and prohibits rejection of a natural gas pipeline if the project meets safety regulations.
- Ends regulatory uncertainty from certain Biden administration rulemakings by putting into law the:
- 2020 EPA and U.S. Army Corps definition of Waters of the United States;
- 2020 EPA methane rule;
- 2021 valuation rule for oil and gas production on federal lands;
- 2020 Council on Environmental Quality NEPA rule; and
- 2021 U.S. Army Corps Pipeline Rule (Nationwide Permit 12).
Read the bill here.
