Pete Domenici: “I think the Senate has an opportunity today to decide whether we are going to give in to a group of Federal bureaucrats…”

“I think the Senate has an opportunity today to decide whether we are going to give in to a group of Federal bureaucrats who have decided it is going to be their way or no way. That is actually the issue. All we are trying to determine through the activities of an established regulatory body is what the fair market value of the oil is on which the U.S. taxpayers are entitled to receive a royalty. The MMS has decided to change the way we have done it in the past and in the process, in the opinion of this Senator and many others, has made it no longer fair. It is not actually levying a royalty on the value of the oil. They have decided to have new starting points. They are not allowing certain things to be deducted that are actual business expenses. In a nutshell, they are establishing a price upon which the royalty is predicated which is not the result of the marketplace and ordinary business practices but some concoction that they have come up with which will cost more money to an American industry that clearly should not be paying new taxes today. This is a new tax because you change the way you regulate it and the way you determine value and you thus increase the taxes. If it is not the right way, then it is an increase in taxes. I do not believe they should be doing this. I think we should be doing this.”