Central ND News

BISMARCK, N.D. – Senator John Hoeven today issued a statement following the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) release of an updated Resource Management Plan (RMP) for North Dakota. The plan would close off leasing to vast areas of potential federal oil and gas acreage and a majority of federal coal acreage in the state. Due to split-estate ownership issues in North Dakota, where federal minerals are often co-located with state or privately-owned minerals under non-federal surface acreage, policies like the RMP prevent mineral holders from exercising their property rights and broadly limit the development of energy resources.

Hoeven has opposed the RMP since the draft was first issued by BLM earlier this year. He pressed BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to rescind the draft RMP and preserve access to taxpayer-owned minerals in the state.

“This plan brings broad-ranging impacts on North Dakota’s energy industry, thereby undermining our nation’s energy security. We need access to these vast taxpayer-owned coal reserves to ensure the reliability and affordability of the grid, and Bakken oil and gas are key to making the U.S. energy dominant once again,” said Hoeven. “Despite these concerns, the cost to private property rights of North Dakotans and the resulting energy price increases on consumers, BLM has pushed ahead with this heavy-handed regulation. We will continue to fight this and all of the overreaching policies being imposed by the Biden-Harris administration.”