Source: United States Senator for North Dakota John Hoeven
Senator Addresses Minot Area Chamber of Commerce
MINOT, N.D. – At a meeting with the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Committee today, Senator John Hoeven outlined his efforts to support the growth of U.S. domestic energy production and push back on the Biden administration’s harmful environmental agenda. The senator stressed the importance of ensuring the U.S. is energy secure to support a stronger economy, reduce inflation for consumers and businesses and enhance national security, including by reducing the reliance of America and its allies on energy from adversaries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela. To this end, Hoeven has advanced the following priorities:
- Pressing the Biden administration to end the oil and gas moratorium on federal lands and to move forward with all postponed and future lease sales.
- The Biden administration’s recent announcement to resume some lease sales would reduce acreage available for leasing by nearly 80 percent and increase federal royalty rates. This will significantly limit future energy development on federal lands and increase production costs, leading to higher prices for consumers.
- Working to streamline the approval of, and provide regulatory certainty for, key energy projects, like the North Bakken Expansion Pipeline.
- Supporting efforts to crack the code on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, including for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).
- Introducing legislation that takes immediate action to increase U.S. energy production.
“North Dakota can, and should be allowed to, produce more energy. In order to get there, President Biden needs to take the handcuffs off our energy producers, instead of imposing costly restrictions on energy development on federal lands and holding up needed projects, like pipelines,” said Hoeven. “We can restore U.S. energy security by unleashing the full potential of our abundant oil, natural gas and coal reserves and do it with the best environmental stewardship in the world. This will not only help bring down prices and reduce inflation here at home, but it will empower America to export energy to our European allies and reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas. That’s how you cut off the Russian war machine, and it’s the right way forward for our nation.”
Securing Approval of Energy Projects
Hoeven has been working to provide regulatory relief for, and help ensure the timely approval of, critically-needed energy infrastructure, including pipelines and transmission lines. As part of this effort, the senator:
- Led a bipartisan group of 25 senators in calling on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to review and act on the North Bakken Expansion project and 13 other natural gas pipeline projects pending before the Commission.
- Is pushing back on two policy statements issued by FERC in February that would impose new standards and considerations on the approval of natural gas projects, including pipelines.
- The policy changes would have impacted both future projects and those that have already completed the required environment impact statements (EIS).
- Following Hoeven’s efforts, the agency paused implementation and began taking public comment on the policy statements.
Cracking the Code on CCUS
At the same time, Hoeven is advancing the following priorities to crack the code on CCUS, which will enable the nation to continue making use of its abundant energy resources, including coal:
- Front end investment in technology development, including bolstering the partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the University of North Dakota’s (UND) Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC).
- Loan guarantees at DOE and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to help project developers secure financing to build the equipment and infrastructure needed to capture and store CO2.
- Enhancements for the 45Q and 48A Advanced Coal tax credits to provide important revenue streams to project developers and encourage adoption of CCUS:
- Sponsored legislation to modernize the 48A tax credit for CO2 capture retrofit projects.
- Helped introduce a bipartisan bill to provide a direct payment option for the 45Q and 48A CCUS tax incentives.
- Joined legislation to increase the value of the 45Q tax credit and make it more accessible to CCUS projects of all sizes.
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