Protect Our Public Lands Act

Bill: 114-hr-1902
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Pocan, Mark [D-WI-2]
Introduced: 2015-04-21
Policy area: Public Lands and Natural Resources
Subjects: General public lands matters

Land use and conservation

Oil and gas
Latest action: action_date: 2015-05-19
text: Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

Summaries:
action_date: 2015-04-21
action_desc: Introduced in House
text: <p> <b>Protect Our Public Lands Act </b></p> <p>This bill amends the Mineral Leasing Act to require a lease on public land for developing deposits of coal, petroleum, natural gas, and other hydrocarbons to prohibit a lessee from conducting hydraulic fracturing activity under the lease. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process to extract underground resources such as oil or gas from a geologic formation by injecting water, a propping agent (e.g., sand), and chemical additives into a well under enough pressure to fracture the geological formation. The bill excludes from hydraulic fracturing any enhanced secondary recovery, including water flooding, tertiary recovery, and other types of well stimulation operations.</p> <p>The bill is applicable only upon the renewal or adjustment of a lease.</p>

tv_txt: I 114th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1902 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES April 21, 2015 Mr. Pocan (for himself, Ms. Schakowsky , Mr. Grijalva , Mr. Nadler , Mr. Cicilline , Mr. DeSaulnier , Mr. Hastings , Mr. McGovern , and Ms. Norton ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources A BILL To ban hydraulic fracturing on land owned by the United States and leased to a third party, and for other purposes.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Protect Our Public Lands Act . 2. Prohibiting hydraulic fracturing under Federal leases The Mineral Leasing Act is amended by inserting after section 37 ( 30 U.S.C. 193 ) the following: 38. No hydraulic fracturing on leased land (a) In general Any lease issued, renewed, or readjusted under this Act shall prohibit the lessee from conducting any activity under the lease for the purpose of hydraulic fracturing. (b) Definition of hydraulic fracturing In this section, the term hydrauling fracturing means an operation conducted in an individual wellbore designed to increase the flow of hydrocarbons from a rock formation to the wellbore through modifying the permeability of reservoir rock by fracturing it, except that such term does not include enhanced secondary recovery, including water flooding, tertiary recovery, and other types of well stimulation operations. . 3. Application The amendment made by section 2 shall not apply to a lease in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act until the renewal or adjustment of the lease.