BILLINGS — Republican lawmakers in Congress are clearing the way for President Donald Trump’s plans to expand mining and drilling on public lands by moving to eliminate energy development limits in several Western states.
House Republicans on Wednesday night voted largely along party lines to repeal land management plans adopted in the closing days of former President Joe Biden’s administration that restricted development in large areas of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.
Biden’s goal was in part to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Under Trump, Republicans are casting aside those aspirations as they open more taxpayer-owned land to development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue.
“This is a great day for Americans across the country as we continue our work to unleash our natural resources, support local economies and communities and strengthen our energy and national security,” said Arkansas Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.
The Republican-majority Senate must still approve the House action, and some lawmakers already have expressed support.
Democrats had urged rejection of the repeals, which were accomplished using a procedure known as the Congressional Review Act that allows lawmakers to undo actions taken by the executive branch.
“Republicans preside over an economy in which everything is getting more expensive,” Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, said during debate on the measures. “Their answer to all of this? More coal.”
Trump declared a “national energy emergency” in January as he sought to speed approvals for oil, gas and coal projects.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management announced the first coal lease awarded to a private company during Trump’s current term — 18.3 million tons of the fuel at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. Coteau Property Companies bought the lease for $106,000 and must submit royalty payments on the coal it extracts.
The sale had been scheduled before Wednesday’s votes by lawmakers.
Administration officials in July announced their intention to undo the Biden-era land use plans, aiming to open more areas to mining and development. That could take months or even years through the usual rulemaking process.
By contrast, a Congressional repeal would go into effect quickly, setting the stage for the administration to execute pending proposals to sell tens of millions of tons of coal beneath public lands in Montana and North Dakota.
In Alaska, the state’s lone U.S. House member, Republican Nick Begich, said repealing the management plan for the central Yukon region would open access to critical minerals and help support a proposed liquefied natural gas project. Opponents, including a consortium of 40 federally recognized tribes, worry a repeal would put subsistence harvests at risk because the lands include important habitat for salmon and caribou.
Wednesday’s votes marked the first time Congress has used the review act in a bid to overturn a land use plan, said Neguse.
An earlier attempt by Republicans to open more federal lands to development called for the sale of more than 2 million acres to states or other entities. That proposal, from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, was excluded from the GOP’s big tax and spending cuts bill amid fierce opposition from some fellow Republicans.
The Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, oversees the lands covered by the disputed management plans.
The land agency on Tuesday announced a separate proposal aimed at increasing mining and drilling in Western states with populations of greater sage grouse. The ground-dwelling birds have been declining for decades because of disease and habitat lost to energy development, grazing and wildfires.
Biden administration officials proposed limits on development and prohibitions against mining to help protect grouse. However, the Democrat’s four-year term ended before many of those measures were finalized.
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