"Idle Permit Total Tops 'Record High' Amid Streamlining Push"

"As the Bureau of Land Management's backlog of outstanding applications to drill on public lands shrinks, the number of tracts that have been approved for development but have gone unused is on the rise.

Under the new administration, Interior Department officials have highlighted the pileup of pending applications for permit to drill (APDs) as a top priority (Energywire, May 17). Last week, Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order instructing his agency to start identifying solutions to address the logjam — which stood at 2,955 unprocessed applications as of April 30 (Energywire, July 7).

Democrats on Capitol Hill have said those tallies pale in comparison to the number of permits BLM has approved but that remain idle — 7,532 as of fiscal 2015, according to the latest available data from the bureau.

In a June 29 appearance before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, a senior Interior official upped that count."

Pamela King reports for EnergyWire July 12, 2017.

Source: EnergyWire, 07/13/2017