Legislative Action

Comprehensive Energy Legislation

To begin the process of reconciling the House and Senate energy bills, the House has voted to go to conference and has appointed its conferees, which will include 24 Republicans and 16 Democrats. However, the Senate has yet to do the same. Work continues in the Senate to clear potential obstacles to agreeing to a conference with the House and appointing conferees. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), would like Congress to produce a conference report prior to the summer recess.

This Week’s Hearings:

  • On Tuesday, June 7, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight, will hold a hearing titled “Oversight of EPA Unfunded Mandates on State, Local, and Tribal Governments.”
  • On Thursday, June 9, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing titled “Implications of the Supreme Court Stay of the Clean Power Plan.”

Regulatory Action

Offshore Oil and Gas

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released a new prospective oil and gas report titled, “The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Five-Year Program for Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing: History and Proposed Program for 2017-2022. Among other issues, the report contains a discussion of market conditions affecting the 2017-2022 program and provides a proposed leasing schedule by region, with the Gulf of Mexico being heavily favored for 2017-2020, and Alaska following in the years 2020-2022.

Oil and Gas

EPA is seeking public comment on a new information collection effort for oil and gas facilities. The agency is specifically pursuing comment from the following industry segments: “Onshore petroleum and natural gas production, onshore petroleum and natural gas gathering and boosting, onshore natural gas processing, onshore natural gas transmission compression, onshore natural gas transmission pipelines, underground natural gas storage, LNG storage and LNG import and export equipment.” Comments are due August 2.