House lawmakers split along party lines over bill to pause fossil fuel leases

Lawmakers split along party lines in a hearing examining a Democratic-backed bill that would pause federal fossil fuel lease sales, with Republicans bemoaning its potential impact on industry, communities and federal revenue streams.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced the bill, which would pause oil, gas and coal lease sales for a year to force federal agencies to enact a plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from public lands and waters by 2040.

The American Public Lands and Waters Climate Solution Act would require the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service to reduce net emissions by at least 35% by 2025, 60% by 2030 and 80% by 2035. Should the agencies fail to meet those targets, they would be prohibited from approving new fossil fuel leases and permits until reaching those compliant levels.

Republicans on the committee denounced the bill in a Feb. 26 hearing, instead touting the Trillion Trees Act proposed by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark. That bill would commit the U.S. to planting more trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, better managing existing forestland and encouraging the use of sustainable building products to sequester carbon, according to its text.

Ranking committee member Rob Bishop, R-Utah, called Westerman's proposal a "commonsense solution," adding that Grijalva's is "another bullet that's going to be used to shoot ourselves in the foot." The money the federal government makes from those leased lands helps fund parks and abandoned mine cleanup, Bishop said.

Grijalva countered that "all the trees in the world won't stand a fighting chance if we don't cut our fossil fuel emissions." Congress has a significant role to play to guide policy that serves as a "response to a crisis and a response to a real threat," he said.

"You can continue to ignore it. We can wait for innovation. We can wait for some bright light to go on and solve it for us," the chairman said. "That's not going to happen. This is going to require our nation to lead again and our nation to take initiative."

Some lawmakers contended that both proposals were needed. U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., said he is ready to work with Republicans to plant trees, but more needs to be done to combat climate threats.

"We should not call these climate solutions if we are using these strategies to continue deforestation and continue developing and burning fossil fuel at a completely unacceptable and unsustainable pace," Huffman said. "We also have to respond to the current administration's binge-drilling proposal for public lands and water. Any bill that does not address that is not up to the challenge of this crisis."

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., contended that the shifting practices and uses in the fossil fuel industry were already addressing climate concerns, noting that the U.S. saw the largest overall decline in energy-related emissions in 2019, with a 2.9% reduction.

"The fact is, energy demand will not go down if we stop leasing on federal lands," Gosar said. "Instituting a ban on oil, gas and coal will simply allow Saudi Arabian oil and Russian LNG to rush in to fill the void."

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