TCS Action: Support Key Provisions and Strengthening Amendments to the CLEAR Act; Oppose Weakening Amendments

 Support Key Provisions and Strengthening Amendments to the CLEAR Act;
Oppose Weakening Amendments

July 14, 2010

Dear Natural Resources Committee Member:

Taxpayers for Common Sense Action urges you to support key reform measures included in the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act, H.R. 3534 during committee consideration today.  We also urge the Committee to reject amendments that would redirect federal revenues to the states or prevent the government from establishing a fiscally prudent system for managing the development of renewable energy.

Several provisions in H.R. 3534 would reduce wasted federal dollars and industry giveaways, and protect valuable taxpayer assets these include -- eliminating royalty giveaways to the oil and gas industry and establishing a competitive leasing program for the development of renewable resources on federal lands.  In an era of record profits, taxpayers should not continue to prop up the oil and gas industry or allow solar or wind to be developed irresponsibly on public lands costing taxpayers down the road.  It is important these be maintained in the final bill.

Many of the bill's reforms are targated to the oil and gas industry.  These include reforms to ensure a fair and transparent royalty collection system, limitations on the use of the abused Royalty-in-Kind program, strengthening mechanisms to help ensure that taxpayers aren't stuck with the clean-up costs left by oil and gas development, and the elimination of several unnecessary royalty relief provisions, that are little more than a giveaway to the oil and gas industry.  In addition to maintaining these provisions in the bill, we urge you to support amendments to recoup lost royalties on Gulf leases such as Markey #90.

We urge the committee to support amendments that strengthen the system for developing renewable energy on public land such as Grijalva #84, which help ensure that the wind and solar applications already being processed by the Department of Interior will be done so in a fair and responsible manner; Lujan #59, which will help protect taxpayers by discouraging speculation in wind and solar markets.

We strongly urge the Committee to oppose amendments that seek to weaken taxpayer protections, such as Hastings #120, which would eliminate the competitive leasing system that has proven to be in the best interests of taxpayers in the development of energy resources.  We also urge you to oppose Inslee #135, which similarly hurts taxpayers by requiring renewable energy to be "cost-competitive" before a competitive leasing system could be established; Inslee #138, which slows the development of a fiscally responsible system for wind and solar by allowing all solar and wind projects with applications submitted before July 1, 2010, to be permitted using the existing process; and Markey #91, which would also delay a comprehensive leasing system for renewable by mandating an unnecessary pilot program before leasing could begin.

TCS Action urges you to support key efforts listed above to end oil and gas giveaways and establish a competitive leasing program for renewable resources and oppose any weakening amendments that threaten this effort.  H.R. 3534 can be an important first step to ending the expensive and irrelevant oil and gas subsidies and preventing future giveaways to the renewables industry.
 

Sincerely,