H.R. 1077 — STEAM Act

This section provides the short title of the Act as the “Streamlining Thermal Energy through Advanced Mechanisms Act” or the “STEAM Act.”

This section expands the rebuttable presumption that a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 applies to certain oil and gas activities on public lands and National Forest System lands to also cover geothermal exploration and development under the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 (30 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.). It adds geothermal wells to the covered activities in two places: (1) drilling an oil, gas, or geothermal well at a location or well pad site where drilling previously occurred within 5 years before spudding the well, and (2) drilling an oil, gas, or geothermal well within a developed field where an approved land use plan or NEPA document analyzed the drilling as a reasonably foreseeable activity and was approved within 5 years before spudding the well.