Deficit Reduction, Job Creation, and Energy Security Act
This bill requires the Department of the Interior to conduct oil and gas lease sales under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The Deficit Reduction Acreage leased in those sales is in addition to the acreage proposed to be leased under the Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017.
This bill establishes the Deficit Reduction Energy Security Fund with sums from the Deficit Reduction Acreage lease sales for 15 years. The sums are to be transferred to the general fund and used solely to reduce the federal deficit. The interest earned on those sums will be transferred to the Coastal and Ocean Sustainability and Health Fund (COSH Fund), established under this Act.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administers the COSH Fund for: (1) the Coastal and Ocean Disaster Grant Program for restoring, mitigating, monitoring, or otherwise managing coastal and ocean natural resources impacted by coastal or ocean disasters; and (2) the National Grant Program for Coastal and Ocean Sustainability and Health for restoring, protecting, maintaining, managing, or understanding marine resources and their habitats and resources in coastal and ocean water.
This bill amends the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to authorize Interior to reinstate expired producible leases in the offshore Gulf or Mexico upon the petition of a prior leaseholder if such reinstatement furthers the purposes and objectives of that Act.
Interior must establish an Office of Energy Employment and Training to oversee the Interior's efforts to carry out this Act, and an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. Further, Interior must take affirmative steps to seek diversity in all of its business and activities.