H.R. 1194 — Federal Lands and Waters Leasing Transparency Act

This section provides the short title of the Act as the “Federal Lands and Waters Leasing Transparency Act.”

This section establishes a reporting requirement for offshore oil and gas lease bids under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1344). If the Secretary of the Interior determines under section 18(a)(4) that a bid for a covered lease tract would not provide the Federal Government fair market value, the Secretary must provide the bidder a report explaining the basis for that determination. If the bid was a qualified bid subject to a resource and economic evaluation, the report must also explain how the bid relates to the Mean Range of Values, Delay-adjusted Mean Range of Values, Adjusted Delayed Value, and Revised Arithmetic Average Measure for the covered lease tract. For this purpose, a covered lease tract is a tract for which the Secretary held a lease sale, received at least 1 bid, and did not issue a lease to the highest responsible qualified bidder.

This section limits the effect of court orders on the Secretary of the Interior’s 60-day deadline to issue onshore oil and gas leases under the Mineral Leasing Act, by providing that no court order may prevent issuance by that deadline unless the court finds that issuing the lease would violate a requirement of Federal law. (Thus, once a successful bidder pays the remaining bonus bid, if any, and the first year’s annual rental, the Secretary must issue the lease within 60 days unless a federal-law violation would result.)

This section limits the remedies available in civil actions challenging offshore oil and gas lease sales conducted under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331 et seq.) by providing that such lawsuits may not affect the validity of any lease issued under the sale or delay the review of exploration plans, development plans, development operations coordination documents, applications for permit to drill, or other Federal authorizations or approvals for activities on those leases. It further provides that, if a court finds the lease sale did not comply with Federal law, the court may not set aside, vacate, or enjoin the lease sale or the leases issued under it, or enjoin the Secretary of the Interior from issuing leases to the highest bidders; instead, the court must remand the matter to the Secretary for correction of the noncompliance. The section also directs the Secretary to continue processing all related plans, documents, applications, and other approvals for activities under leases issued in the challenged sale.