Bill Details
View committees (1)
AI Summary This summary was generated by AI from the bill text. AI can get information wrong.
This bill would make it faster and easier to approve some geothermal energy projects in areas that have already been studied or used for energy development. It changes an existing rule in federal energy law so that certain geothermal exploration and development projects can be handled more quickly, instead of going through the longer environmental review process in every case. The goal is to speed up work on geothermal energy, which uses heat from underground to produce power, especially in places where the land and energy potential are already well known.
- It updates a part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that deals with environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
- It adds geothermal exploration and development to the types of projects that can qualify for faster review in certain situations.
- It focuses on previously studied or developed areas, where there is already more information about the land and less need for a full new review.
Official Summaries
Streamlining Thermal Energy through Advanced Mechanisms Act or the STEAM Act
This bill expedites the environmental review of certain geothermal energy activities under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). Specifically, the bill expands the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to include certain geothermal exploration or development activities in an existing categorical exclusion from NEPA for certain oil or gas activities.
A categorical exclusion applies to a class of actions that do not require an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement under NEPA.
The categorical exclusion established by the bill applies to drilling a geothermal well (1) in an area where drilling has occurred previously within the five years prior to the date when drilling begins; or (2) within a developed field for which an approved land use plan or environmental document prepared under NEPA determined drilling to be a reasonably foreseeable activity, so long as the plan or document was approved within the five years prior to the date when drilling begins.
Current Full Text
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 456 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 456
To amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to expedite geothermal
exploration and development in previously studied or developed areas.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 6 (legislative day, February 5), 2025
Ms. Cortez Masto (for herself and Ms. Murkowski) introduced the
following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to expedite geothermal
exploration and development in previously studied or developed areas.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Streamlining Thermal Energy through
Advanced Mechanisms Act'' or the ``STEAM Act''.
SEC. 2. NEPA REVIEW.
Section 390 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 15942) is
amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by inserting ``, or the Geothermal
Steam Act of 1970 (30 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.) for the purpose of
exploration or development of geothermal resources'' after ``or
gas''; and
(2) in subsection (b)--
(A) in paragraph (2), by striking ``or gas'' and
inserting ``, gas, or geothermal''; and
(B) in paragraph (3), by striking ``or gas'' and
inserting ``, gas, or geothermal''.
<all>