House subcommittee debates bills to overturn offshore withdrawals, require expanded resource mapping

Members of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a hearing on legislation that would roll back recent presidential withdrawals of offshore acreage and require recurring, modernized resource assessments for the Outer Continental Shelf.

At the hearing, Representative Clay Higgins, sponsor of the Offshore Lands Authorities Act (H.R. 513), said the bill would reverse recent withdrawals and place limits on future withdrawals. Dr. Walter Cruickshank, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, told the subcommittee that BOEM "strongly supports overturning the OCS administrative withdrawals that unnecessarily impede American energy development" and that the agency welcomes the bill's…