On the recordJuly 7, 2015
The amendment would prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from using its legal authorities to modernize its royalty rate structure, which would result in less revenue to the Treasury. The Department of the Interior's oil and gas royalties have been the subject of repeated study by the Government Accountability Office and other entities for many years. In 2008, the GAO said the United States could be forgoing billions of dollars in revenue from the production of Federal oil and gas resources due to the lack of price flexibility in royalty rates and the inability to change the fiscal terms on existing leases. In 2013, the GAO issued another report that noted concern that the Department of the Interior had not taken the steps to change the onshore royalty rate regulations. Modernizing the Bureau of Land Management's rate structures can provide critical flexibility, especially given the dramatic growth of oil development on public and tribal lands, where production has increased in each of the past 6 years and combined production was up 81 percent in 2004 versus 2008. It seems to me that it is critical that the Department of the Interior is ensuring that the public is receiving a fair return from the production of oil and gas from Federal leases. This amendment would guarantee a sweetheart deal for Big Oil companies at the expense of the American taxpayer. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.
