HR5631-119

What This Bill Does

The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act combines several federal geothermal reforms. It requires the Interior Secretary to appoint a Bureau of Land Management Geothermal Ombudsman and create a Geothermal Permitting Task Force within 60 days. The ombudsman serves as a liaison, resolves disputes, monitors processing times, develops leasing and permitting practices, coordinates with the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, and reports annually to Congress. The task force may coordinate cross-office assignments of Interior personnel, subject to the source bureau's workload determination and duty-station approval, and may pay qualifying retention allowances of up to 25 percent when appropriations are available. For a valid existing geothermal lease affected by a pending civil action, Interior must still approve or deny drilling permits, sundry notices, rights-of-way, and other authorizations within 60 days after completing all applicable federal requirements, unless a federal court has vacated or enjoined the relevant lease or authorization. Existing judicial authority remains intact. Through September 30, 2033, Interior may require geothermal lease applicants or holders to reimburse reasonable federal costs of processing leases, plans, permits, and approvals and of inspecting exploration, wells, facilities, operations, closure, and reclamation. Interior must consider cooperative cost-sharing and may reduce reimbursement for economic hardship or to promote geothermal use. Collections are credited as discretionary offsetting collections but are available only when appropriations acts provide advance authority. Within five years, Interior must consult industry and stakeholders and report publicly and to Congress on the cost-recovery program and possible reauthorization. The department must also identify missing geothermal operating procedures within one year, publish a geothermal-inclusive revision of BLM's Gold Book within another 270 days, consult agencies and outside experts, and review the guidance at least every five years. The royalty provisions define each electric-generating facility separately unless facilities share a turbine and measure the statutory 10-year initial royalty period from each facility's in-service date rather than the lease's first production. This can extend the lower initial royalty band to later facilities on an existing lease. Finally, the bill extends the Energy Policy Act's rebuttable presumption for a NEPA categorical exclusion to qualifying geothermal activity under the Geothermal Steam Act, specifically drilling at a site used within the prior five years and drilling in a developed field covered by sufficiently recent NEPA analysis. The bill does not waive the remaining federal legal requirements, eliminate federal courts' existing injunctive power, directly appropriate the reimbursed funds, or make all geothermal development categorically excluded.

Who Benefits and How

Geothermal developers and federal leaseholders benefit from a dedicated ombudsman, coordinated permit staff, standardized operating guidance, continued agency decisions during litigation absent a court order, and selected reductions in NEPA processing uncertainty. Developers adding electric-generating facilities to existing leases benefit because each non-shared-turbine facility receives its own in-service date for the initial 10-year royalty period, potentially reducing royalties compared with a lease-wide clock. BLM geothermal offices benefit from authority to recover reasonable processing and inspection costs through 2033 and to shift qualified personnel across offices, while assigned specialists may receive retention allowances when funding is available. Congress, regulators, stakeholders, and the public benefit from annual permitting reports, a five-year cost-recovery evaluation, consultation requirements, and periodically reviewed standards for efficient and environmentally responsible operations.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Geothermal lease applicants and holders may have to reimburse federal administrative, permitting, inspection, monitoring, and reclamation-oversight costs, which can raise project costs and barriers despite hardship and program-use reduction authority. Interior, BLM, other departmental bureaus, and permitting personnel must establish and staff the new offices, coordinate assignments, meet decision deadlines, administer fees and retention allowances, consult stakeholders, update guidance, and produce recurring reports. Federal royalty accounts may receive less revenue when later generating facilities on an existing lease receive a new 10-year period under the lower initial royalty range rather than inheriting the lease's older production clock. Environmental-review consultants, litigants, and communities near federal geothermal projects may face less procedural delay or review work for the two newly covered categorical-exclusion categories, although existing injunction authority and other federal requirements remain.

Key Provisions

• Establishes a BLM Geothermal Ombudsman and Permitting Task Force with dispute-resolution, staffing, retention-pay, coordination, and annual reporting responsibilities.
• Requires Interior to decide covered applications within 60 days after completing applicable federal requirements despite pending litigation, unless a federal court grants operative relief.
• Authorizes temporary recovery of reasonable federal geothermal processing and inspection costs through September 30, 2033, with hardship and development-promoting reductions.
• Requires a public five-year evaluation of cost recovery and possible reauthorization after consultation with geothermal stakeholders.
• Requires a geothermal-inclusive Gold Book update and review at least once every five years for efficient and environmentally responsible federal operations.
• Modifies geothermal royalty administration so each generating facility generally receives a separate 10-year period measured from its own in-service date.
• Expands the rebuttable presumption for a NEPA categorical exclusion to two specified categories of geothermal drilling activity.