Washington D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Forrest Burkholder, EnerGeo Alliance's Board of Directors Vice Chair and President and CEO of SAExploration, testified on behalf of EnerGeo Alliance during the Legislative hearing including Rep. Begich Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) Discussion Draft Bill.
Burkholder, in his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee - Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, highlighted the absolute necessity of modernizing and revising the MMPA, and applauded Representative Begich's efforts in this direction:
"America and the world continue to need energy; the majority of energy comes from the earth, and Geosciences are the primary source of information that enables responsible production", he said. "Of critical importance is the permitting process; despite –or precisely because of its importance, the process is a point of heightened vulnerability for the geoscience industry. Permitting of exploration is often stalled in regulatory reviews without clear timelines and is a favored entry point for activists seeking to block American energy development. Whether that's petroleum, natural gas, or even alternative energy."
Alaska is one of the areas where, despite responsible operations by the industry, issued permits for exploration activities have been stalled for multiple years due to unexplained delays. This uncertainty has a direct impact on local communities, the state's, and the nation's economic well-being and energy security.
Over the past years, the MMPA and other environmental laws, created to provide better protections for the environment, have been exploited by activists to hinder energy development projects: "The MMPA was intended to provide better protections for marine mammals from human activities that can cause direct physical harm to them – a goal that has largely been realized. Decades of regulation and litigation have caused the MMPA to be interpreted far more expansively than Congress intended and exposed significant flaws in the plain language of the Act."
"As with many laws, we don't always know the problems until we've operated under them.", continued Burkholder. "We've learned that for some people it's easy to exploit the ambiguities in existing regulations governing the potential 'take' of these activities. Activists have discovered that those ambiguities create opportunities for regulatory sabotage that can freeze agency activity and undermine all the best intentions of honest regulators."
Rep. Begich's Draft Bill represents an opportunity to fix these issues: "By setting reasonable deadlines in the application process, removing unnecessary duplication between the MMPA and ESA, along with removing or defining terms, Congress can ensure the agencies are accountable to existing statutory timelines and prevent future misapplication of the statute so that it can function as originally intended."
"Fixing these problems would increase permitting efficiency, decrease uncertainty, and ultimately benefit all stakeholders, the implementing agencies, and most importantly, marine mammals. It would prevent abuse of the law and facilitate greater geoscience investment and American energy independence.", concluded Burkholder.
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About EnerGeo Alliance
Founded in 1971, EnerGeo Alliance is the global trade alliance for the energy geoscience industry, the intersection where earth science and energy meet. We represent the geoscience companies, innovators, and energy developers that use earth science to discover, develop, and deliver energy to our world. Together, we are Making Energy Possible.
Michela Fumagalli EnerGeo Alliance 713-584-3391 mfumagalli@energeoalliance.org