A House committee cited Alaska while advancing a drilling bill for elsewhere

The House Natural Resources Committee voted 21-16 on Tuesday to advance a bill removing the federal drilling permit requirement on roughly 4 million acres where private surface sits above federal minerals. A coalition of conservation groups estimates it would reach about 7,000 existing wells in North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Montana. Alaska is not among the states named.

Alaska came up anyway. Chairman Bruce Westerman, arguing the committee has been clearing away what he called duplicative process, cited its use of the Congressional Review Act to reverse resource management plans that he said locked up millions of acres of public land in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

The Alaska one was Rep. Nick Begich's. His resolution nullified the Bureau of Land Management's Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan, issued in November 2024, which set management direction for 13.3 million acres in central and northern Alaska. The House passed it in September 2025 and the Senate in October. Killing the plan voided about 3.6 million acres of areas of critical environmental concern and reinstated plans dating to 1981, 1986 and 1991. Begich's office said the reversal reopened 1.86 million acres of former critical-concern land and 330,000 acres of utility and transportation corridors.

The bill the committee moved Tuesday, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, applies when a well starts on non-federal surface and less than half the subsurface minerals tapped are federally owned. An operator would file a state-approved drilling permit with the Interior secretary rather than a federal application, and could begin work 30 days later. It does not apply to Indian lands.

Ranking Member Jared Huffman of California said a surface owner "could lose the federal permitting process that at least lets you know what's being proposed." His amendment setting minimum bond amounts failed 16-21. Westerman called it a bond in search of a purpose.

The bill now goes to the full House.