National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution that Senator Cramer and I introduced to overturn the Bureau of Land Management resource management plan for North Dakota.

This flawed plan, finalized during the closing days of the Biden administration, undermines BLM's multiple-use mandate and restricts access to vast, taxpayer-owned energy reserves in North Dakota. It is yet another example of the Biden administration's overreaching Green New Deal agenda intended to block access to domestic energy production.

North Dakota is an energy powerhouse and the third largest oil- producing State in the Nation. Our energy producers operate under the highest environmental standards in the world.

But the Biden administration's North Dakota resource management plan ignores that record of responsible energy development. Instead, the North Dakota resource management plan seeks to curtail coal, oil, and gas production by locking away taxpayer-owned energy reserves and jeopardizing our Nation's energy security.

Under this plan, nearly 213,000 acres--or 45 percent--of Federal oil and gas acreage is closed off to new leasing. It also closes off access to over 4 million acres--nearly 99 percent--of Federal coal, impacting development at all of North Dakota's major lignite coal mines.

These restrictions will drive up supply costs for baseload coal-fired powerplants--costs that will be ultimately passed on to electric customers across the region. We supply a large region of the Midwest with electric power.

This comes at a time when energy demand is rising. As manufacturing is brought back home and new industries like artificial intelligence and data centers are coming online, our need for affordable, reliable energy is only growing. It makes no sense for the Federal Government to restrict access to the very resources needed to power our economy.

In North Dakota, BLM manages 58,000 acres of surface land and about 4.1 million acres of subsurface minerals. Federal minerals are scattered and often intermingled with State and privately owned minerals due to North Dakota's unique split estate. So when the Federal Government imposes blanket restrictions as included under the Biden-era resource management plan, it blocks development of State and privately owned minerals as well.

The State of North Dakota estimates that this plan would cost $34 million every year in lost revenue from oil and gas alone, including revenue for school trust lands that is meant for North Dakota classrooms.

I am pleased to join Senator Cramer and Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak in introducing this CRA resolution, and I urge my colleagues to support it and help overturn this overreaching and restrictive plan. By passing this resolution, we can continue working with President Trump and Interior Secretary Burgum to take the handcuffs off and unleash North Dakota's full energy potential.

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