Michele Bachmann: “These lands are owned by the American people and they are leased out to oil companies or natural gas companies. These…”

“These lands are owned by the American people and they are leased out to oil companies or natural gas companies. These oil and gas companies have to pay for these leases. They aren't just given to them free of charge. They have to pay for the right to search for the oil. They take all the risk, and they find the natural resource and they access that natural resource. It doesn't make any sense economically for a company to lease something and waste money on leases that they aren't going to use. It's already in law that if the companies that lease this land, if they are not productive, it's already a law they have to turn the leases back. They can't just lease them forever, get them for free, not pay for that right to lease the land. They have to already turn them back if they aren't productive, because the companies know if there's oil on the land, or if there's gas on the land, they already know if it's there. Just because they have leased land doesn't mean that there's oil on it or that there's gas on it. It just doesn't make sense someone is going to waste money if they are in a private company. That takes away from profit, and you need to have profits to be able to go forward.”