SLS 23RS-1845 ORIGINAL
2023 Regular Session
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 116
BY SENATOR FRED MILLS
ENERGY PRODUCTION. Requests President Joe R. Biden Jr. and United States
Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to immediately adopt a new five-year
offshore leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico to help reduce the cost of energy.
1 A RESOLUTION
2 To urge and request the President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the United States Department of
3 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to immediately adopt a new five-year offshore
4 leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico to help reduce the cost of energy.
5 WHEREAS, the National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing
6 Program, since its authorization by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, has provided
7 significant energy, approximately one in six barrels of the United States total oil production,
8 which helps fuel the great economy of America, including our agriculture economy; and
9 WHEREAS, the National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program, has been very effective
10 in helping America realize affordable energy, achieve energy security, and strengthen our
11 national security; and
12 WHEREAS, the National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program has been managed in
13 such a way that it is recognized as an environmentally advantaged energy province with fifty
14 three percent of the carbon intensity per barrel of other producing regions worldwide, and
15 with one of the lowest methane venting or flaring metrics; and
16 WHEREAS, Our Nation's offshore energy represents a significant opportunity to
17 help improve the health of our planet due to its low carbon intensity; and
18 WHEREAS, since its inception the National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program is
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SLS 23RS-1845 ORIGINAL
1 responsible for helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs with a significant economic
2 impact and has generated hundreds of billions in royalties revenue for the United States
3 Treasury; and
4 WHEREAS, the United States Congress in 2020 permanently funded the Land and
5 Water Conservation Fund at nine hundred million per year with wide bipartisan support,
6 relying solely on earnings from federal offshore oil and gas leasing; the Land and Water
7 Conservation Fund has funded more than four billion worth of projects since its inception
8 in 1965 for purposes of conservation, recreation, restoration, and protection of vital national
9 resources; and
10 WHEREAS, since 2006, more than one billion, funded exclusively by federal
11 offshore lease revenues, has been disbursed to four Gulf energy-producing states through the
12 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act to support coastal conservation and restoration projects,
13 hurricane protection programs, and activities to implement marine coastal or conservation
14 management plans; and
15 WHEREAS, since 2021, the American energy policy has included the pausing and
16 canceling of offshore lease sales and recently the nation's previous five-year offshore leasing
17 plan has been allowed to lapse for the longest period in our nation's history; and
18 WHEREAS, in February 2023, the Institute for Energy Research issued a paper
19 concluding "the results show that purely as a matter of environmental protection, replacing
20 United States domestic production with foreign supply would be an overwhelmingly
21 negative tradeoff"; and
22 WHEREAS, calling on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to
23 increase production while vilifying, pausing, canceling, and delaying offshore lease sales is
24 not a solution, but harms the energy workers across America; and
25 WHEREAS, America's energy workers are skilled, dedicated, motivated, and ready
26 to help America produce the domestic energy needed to reduce "pain at the pump", tame
27 inflation and lower food cost; and
28 WHEREAS, returning to regularly scheduled lease sales for offshore resources,
29 previously authorized by the administrations of both political parties for over five decades,
30 by and between thirteen United States presidents, would help reduce energy inflation; and
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SLS 23RS-1845 ORIGINAL
1 WHEREAS, the future production of these oil and gas resources and, consequently,
2 the funding of conservation, recreation, restoration and protection and further consequently
3 the denial of environmentally advantaged, low carbon intensity barrels of production as a
4 substitution for higher carbon intensity barrels of production from foreign sources; and
5 consequently the availability of these energy resources to help tame inflation and increase
6 security for American farmers, ranchers, and families; will all be negatively impacted by the
7 failure of the United States Department of Interior to timely issue a five-year leasing plan
8 with regularly scheduled lease sales.
9 THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
10 does hereby urge and request President Joe R. Biden Jr. and United States Department of
11 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland immediately adopt a new five-year offshore leasing plan,
12 including regularly scheduled oil and gas lease sales for the Gulf of Mexico, a historic
13 energy producing province, to assist in producing a larger portfolio of some of the planet's
14 lowest carbon intensity barrels of oil to help reduce the cost of energy.
The original instrument and the following digest, which constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument, were prepared by Tyler McCloud.
DIGEST
SR 116 Original 2023 Regular Session Fred Mills
Request's President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and U.S. Dept. of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
to immediately adopt a new five-year offshore leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico to help
the cost of energy.
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