Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Removing Barriers to Energy Independence Act”.
Removing Barriers to Energy Independence Act
A BILL
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to recover the cost of processing administrative protests for oil and gas lease sales, applications for permits to drill, and right of way applications, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Administrative protest process reform
Section 17 of the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 226) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(q) Protest filing fee
“(1) In general—Before processing any protest filed under this section, the Secretary shall collect a filing fee from the protestor to recover the cost for processing documents filed for each administrative protest.
“(2) Amount—The filing fee shall be calculated as follows:
“(A) For each protest filed in a submission not exceeding 10 pages in length, the base filing fee shall be $150.
“(B) For each submission exceeding 10 pages in length, an addition to the base filing fee, an assessment of $5 per page in excess of 10 pages shall apply.
“(C) For protests that include more than one oil and gas lease parcel, right-of-way, or application for permit to drill in a submission, an additional assessment of $10 per additional lease parcel, right-of-way, or application for permit to drill shall apply.
“(3) Adjustment
“(A) In general—Beginning on January 1, 2020, and annually thereafter, the Secretary shall adjust the filing fees established in this subsection to whole dollar amounts to reflect changes in the Producer Price Index, as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the previous 12 months.
“(B) Publication of adjusted filing fees—At least 30 days before the filing fees as adjusted under this paragraph take effect, the Secretary shall publish notification of the adjustment of such fees in the Federal Register.”