Joint Trades Letter on Senate Consideration of Reconciliation

Dear Chairman Manchin and Ranking Member Barrasso,

We are grateful for your collective leadership in recent months to bring balance to the policy debate on energy policy. As the backbone of the American oil and natural gas industry, our respective organizations are writing to express our grave concerns with virtually every one of the provisions included in the House Committee on Natural Resources title of the Build Back Better Act. We request that the Senate strike the House language from the bill and wait for the Biden Administration’s leasing moratorium report to be released before undertaking any revision to the current federal oil and gas onshore and offshore programs.

The House language is unworkable in many ways. It is bad policy and has generated a long list of concerns which we are happy to discuss in detail with you. In short, if implemented it will:

1. Drive all but a few large industry players off federal lands and waters as it renders federal leases completely uncompetitive compared to adjacent private or state lands

2. Decrease funding significantly for conservation of federal lands, which are financed exclusively by federal oil, natural gas, and coal

3. Reduce competition as well as innovation in both the onshore and offshore industry

4. Widen the income gap between urban and rural communities

5. Fail in its overly optimistic revenue projections, adding billions to the deficit.

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