Exclusive — Rep. Ted Budd Introduces Amendment to End ‘Bureaucratic Freeze’ on American Drilling

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced an amendment on Monday which would require the Biden administration to issue decisions on drilling permit applications currently frozen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Breitbart News has learned exclusively.

The amendment to H.R. 7606, called the Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act, would mandate that BLM issue decisions on permits within 90 days of submission. Budd pointed to a White House fact sheet from March 31, 2022, which admitted that “right now, the oil and gas industry is sitting on…9,000 unused but already-approved permits for production” — even as gas prices average a whopping $5 around the country.

Under the Mineral Leasing Act, the BLM must give further permission to holders who have permits to drill on federal land to drill on specific sites. According to Budd, there are close to 5,000 pending permits awaiting BLM approval.

“As millions of North Carolinians struggle with $5 per gallon gas prices, the Biden administration is slow-walking the approval of new drilling permits. This bureaucratic freeze must end now,” Budd told Breitbart News. “That’s why my amendment is so critical. It ensures that the Biden administration abandons its radical environmentalist agenda and focuses on a pro-American energy policy that makes life easier for everyday North Carolinians.”

The congressman added that the number of permits approved by Biden’s BLM for energy procurement in January 2022 was 85 percent lower than in April 2020.

Soon after Biden took office, he enacted several policies kowtowing to the climate activist agenda — including shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline — which ended the country’s energy independence achieved under former President Donald Trump. One of the moves included placing a moratorium on oil and gas leasing on federal land, with the ultimate goal of banning hydraulic fracking.

Biden backtracked slightly in April under pressure to lower gas prices, saying it would resume the sale of leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands while imposing new conditions, “including the first hike in royalties in more than 100 years,” the Associated Press reported.

Soon after the decision, White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy declared: “President Biden remains absolutely committed to not moving forward with additional drilling on public lands.” She added that the Biden administration “had no choice” but to put out new drilling leases, “but they also found ways to reduce the size of that and its impact.”

“We are making an irreversible change towards clean energy that no court is going to block because we’re doing it in a legally solid way,” she continued.

According to Budd’s office, the congressman submitted the amendment to the Committee of Rules, but Democrats on the committee refused to consider the legislation. In response, Budd plans on introducing the amendment as a stand-alone bill next week.