'Good Thing Or Bad Thing?': John Barrasso Does Not Let Up On Deb Haaland In Tense Questioning

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At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) Interior Secretary Deb Haaland about energy production.

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00:00 a record amount of crude oil and natural gas. Is that a good

00:03 thing or a bad thing?

00:04 [Ms. Warren] Senator, I believe that President Biden wants

00:11 energy and----

00:12 [Mr. Lankford] Good thing or bad thing, that we produced a

00:14 record amount of crude oil and natural gas?

00:15 [Ms. Warren] Well, I agree that we have a record amount of

00:21 production on Federal lands.

00:22 [Mr. Lankford] No, not on Federal. Is it a good thing or a

00:25 bad thing? It is just a simple question.

00:27 [Ms. Warren] Well, I think that energy independence for our

00:29 country is a good thing.

00:30 [Mr. Lankford] Because 2 weeks ago, Secretary of Energy

00:32 Granholm told the committee, good thing, so you agree with her?

00:34 [Ms. Warren] Senator, I think that energy production on our

00:40 public lands is at an all-time high. We are grateful that we

00:44 have been able to produce energy, specifically also our work

00:48 on clean energy----

00:49 [Mr. Lankford] It doesn't seem like you are helping so much

00:52 because of what we have talked about in my opening statement.

00:54 So the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan would, among

00:58 other things that you proposed, prohibit oil and natural gas

01:01 exploration on more than 2 million acres. It would ban

01:04 Toronto production on over 2 million acres. It would severely

01:08 restrict all surface uses of 1.6 million acres. The Governor,

01:14 congressional delegation, State legislature, county

01:16 commissioners in Wyoming, local communities all strongly oppose

01:20 this plan by your department.

01:22 I just want to know, how can the department be a good partner

01:25 to Wyoming if it ignores the opposition from the people who are

01:29 most affected by this plan?

01:31 [Ms. Warren] Thank you for the question, Senator. And I do

01:35 also appreciate your opening statement and want you to know

01:38 that I apologize. This project has also been referred to as

01:42 Sweetwater, and so that is what I have been calling it.

01:47 We appreciate that your Governor put together a constructive

01:50 task force. We are taking those recommendations, as well as all

01:54 the public comments we get, very seriously, as we always do.

01:58 We expect that the task force, as well as the many people who

02:01 took the time to weigh in on the draft plan, will see their

02:04 comments reflected in a final plan that best balances, as I

02:08 have always promised to manage our public lands with a balance,

02:12 the many important uses in the Rock Springs or Sweetwater area,

02:15 such as grazing, trona mining, recreation, and wildlife

02:19 migration.

02:20 [Mr. McHenry] Because this proposed plan is a stake at the

02:22 heart of the Wyoming economy. The Department needs to listen

02:26 more to the people of Wyoming, and I would appreciate all your

02:28 efforts in that area.

02:29 I want to go to also the Bureau of Land Management, another

02:32 rule called the Public Lands Rule. That is going to turn

02:36 decades of multiple use mandate on its head. You just said

02:40 you are for a lot of these things, but that rule isn't. It

02:43 is going to allow third parties to lease public lands to block

02:46 the productive use of the land.

02:49 These lands we are not talking about national parks, we are

02:50 not talking about wildlife refuges, we are not talking about

02:52 wilderness. These are lands that Congress has specifically made

02:56 available for grazing, as you mentioned, for energy, for

03:00 mineral production, for recreation. I mean, the three big parts

03:04 of the Wyoming economy, agriculture, energy, tourism. So I don't

03:09 know how nonuse of land qualifies as the productive use of

03:13 land. Could you explain that to me?

03:15 [Ms. Warren] Thank you very much, Senator.

03:17 And since I have been in this committee during my

03:21 confirmation hearings, I have promised to manage our public

03:25 lands in a balance, and that is what this rule seeks to do. It

03:29 makes conservation on par with BLM's other uses in our

03:33 multiuse mandate. Recreation and grazing, consistent with BLM's

03:38 multiple use and sustained yield mission. It enables the BLM to

03:42 manage public lands to maintain their health and function for

03:45 years to come because we believe we have an obligation to

03:48 future generations for those public lands.

03:51 [Mr. Issa] Well, it does sound like when I read through

03:53 this public lands rule, you would be happy if all the land

03:57 went away, if people rented it all, took it all, and then put

04:00 it all nonuse. So I think that what you are saying is not at

04:03 all true in terms of what the intent of the law is, to allow

04:06 multiple use for productive use of the land.

04:09 And one other area, the Bureau of Land Management has yet

04:12 to issue leases to the winning bidders of its December 2020

04:17 onshore oil and gas leases. These were paid for, $7 million,

04:21 went to the Treasury. Government took the money. The law says

04:24 the leases must be issued in 60 days. When do you plan to issue

04:28 these leases to the winning bidders who paid for the leases

04:33 back 3 years ago?

04:34 [Ms. Warren] Thank you, Senator. I want to assure you

04:37 that BLM is following the law. We are holding regular onshore

04:41 lease sales.

04:42 [Mr. Meehan] That is not the question. The question is,

04:45 leases have been sales, money has been paid, $7 million taken

04:50 in. You are supposed to have put out the lease in 60 days. They

04:53 handed you the wrong paper to read the wrong answer. You had

04:57 3 1/2 years to issue the leases. Will you commit to issue them

05:01 in the next 30 days?

05:02 [Ms. Warren] Thank you, Senator. As soon as I get back

05:05 to my office, I will doublecheck on this issue and make sure that

05:09 we give you the status when we get back to our office.

'Good Thing Or Bad Thing?': John Barrasso Does Not Let Up On Deb Haaland In Tense Questioning

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