As part of an omnibus energy bill to be marked up next month, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to propose a pilot program that will offer producers in four or five western states “one-stop shopping” to obtain their permits and other authorizations to drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands, said a press aide.

The proposal would seek to house officials from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Forest Service under one roof in several, unidentified states in the West in an attempt to streamline the federal permitting procedures for producers, noted committee spokeswoman Marnie Funk.

The proposed pilot would involve only onshore areas that currently are open to development, she said.

In a hearing before the Senate panel last month, representatives of producer groups in the West complained that producers have had to wait up to 137 days to get their permits approved to drill on federal lands, a process that by law should only take 30 days.

Responding to producers’ concerns, Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) vowed that he would seek to remove the “unnecessary delays” to oil and gas development on federal lands as part of his broad-based energy legislation. He has scheduled six days next month (April 1-3, and April 8-10) for the committee to mark up the bill and vote it out.

The energy legislation, which will have 13 titles, also would propose financial incentives to build an Alaskan natural gas pipeline to the Lower 48 states, and would favor the southern route (Alaska Highway) for the line, Funk said. In addition, it endorses deepwater royalty relief for oil and gas producers.

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