I introduced an amendment today to S.1 that would prevent the excessive delay of drilling permits by the Bureau of Land Management. Federal law requires the BLM to approve or deny these permits within 30 days. In Moab and in Salt Lake City the average processing delay is around 220 days. The result of all this red tape is a serious backlog of about 3,500 permits. My amendment would address this problem in a few ways. First, it would require the BLM To issue a permit within 60 days of receiving an application. If the permit is denied, the BLM would be required to specify the reasons for its decision to deny the permit and to allow the applicant thereafter to address a issues. The amendment would also address delays stemming from reviews under the Endangered Species Act and under the National Environmental Policy Act. Reviews under these statutes are required to be completed within 180 days. To provide companies with certainty and to hold BLM accountable, if either of these deadlines is not met, the application would be deemed approved.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 21:51:45 +0000