HR5576-119

What This Bill Does

This bill amends the Geothermal Steam Act to speed exploration and leasing on federal lands. It defines a geothermal exploration project to include drilling temperature-gradient, monitoring, calibration, or other exploratory wells by a geothermal leaseholder when the casing, surface-disturbance, 180-day completion, and three-year restoration limits are met. It also defines covered activities such as geotechnical investigations, off-road travel in existing rights-of-way, and construction, maintenance, realignment, or repair of existing access roads.

Those exploration projects and covered activities are not treated as major federal actions under NEPA. Leaseholders must give the Secretary at least 30 days' notice before exploration drilling. The bill also requires Interior, in consultation with Energy, to designate geothermal leasing priority areas on covered federal land within three years, review the designations at least every five years, prepare or supplement programmatic environmental impact statements, consult state, Tribal, local, transmission, and developer stakeholders, and avoid delaying permits or lease sales while a supplement is unfinished.

Who Benefits and How

Geothermal leaseholders benefit because qualifying exploration projects avoid full NEPA major-federal-action review. Geothermal developers benefit from priority-area designations and limits on repeated NEPA analysis for lease sales. BLM geothermal permitting offices benefit from clearer statutory rules for exploration projects, access-road activities, and priority areas. Electric utilities seeking geothermal power benefit if federal lease sales and exploration move faster. Transmission infrastructure owners benefit from consultation when priority areas are designated.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Interior land managers must designate priority areas, review them every five years, prepare programmatic environmental documents, and process notices. BLM environmental review staff must apply the NEPA exclusions and determine whether substantial new circumstances require additional analysis. State governments, Tribal governments, and local governments must participate in consultations to protect land-use interests. Conservation groups bear a monitoring burden because some exploration and access-road work will move with less NEPA process. Public-land users near geothermal projects may face faster project activity.

Key Provisions

• Defines geothermal exploration projects by well type, casing size, surface disturbance, completion time, and restoration requirements.
• Provides that qualifying geothermal exploration projects and covered activities are not major federal actions under NEPA.
• Requires leaseholders to give the Secretary 30 days' notice before exploration drilling.
• Requires Interior to designate geothermal leasing priority areas within three years.
• Requires five-year review of covered land and existing priority-area designations.
• Bars Interior from delaying permits or lease sales because a programmatic environmental supplement is unfinished.
• Limits additional NEPA analysis for priority-area lease sales when a programmatic environmental document remains valid.