Washington (Platts)--27Feb2013/502 pm EST/2202 GMT

Key Republicans in the US House of Representatives and the Senate decried claims Wednesday that the federal sequester could stall oil and natural gas drilling, calling them empty threats from an Obama administration that has been working for years to slow down energy production within the US.

"I think sequestration is just the most recent excuse to slow things down," Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said during a press conference on a new energy bill he plans to introduce to expand drilling on public lands.

Vitter said the Obama administration's claims about the impact of federal spending cuts on permitting for energy projects is just part of a "general scare strategy that the world is ending because of sequestration."

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Representative Rob Bishop of Utah, the chairman of the Natural Resources' Public Lands and Environment Regulation subcommittee, said administration officials could not slow down the energy permitting process any more than they have in recent years "unless they cut their hands off."

"To have this administration be slower in the permitting process is a mind-boggling concept," said Bishop, who said the process is already plagued by a "massive amount of redundancy and regulation."

"Right now we have too much regulation, too much bureaucracy, too much redundancy," said Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican and member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Departing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has warned that the federal permitting process for oil, gas and coal development on federal lands and waters could slow to a crawl if the government does not find a way to sidestep $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts that will take effect starting Friday if no long-term budget deal is reached.

Salazar said mandatory spending cuts also would delay environmental reviews and inspections that energy projects need to go forward. In addition, leasing for future development on federal land "would also be delayed, with fewer resources available for agencies to prepare for and conduct lease sales," Salazar said in a recent letter to Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

According to Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, the sequester would force Interior to cut more than $17.3 million from the budgets of two agencies responsible for issuing leases and ensuring drilling safety.

--Brian Scheid, brian_scheid@platts.com
--Edited by Valarie Jackson, valarie_jackson@platts.com

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