WASHINGTON - Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.) today introduced legislation that would raise roughly $19 billion over the next 10 years to reduce the U.S. budget deficit by ensuring oil, gas and mining companies are paying a fair price to use public resources. The legislation, called the Fair Payment for Energy and Mineral Production on Public Lands Act, would close loopholes that currently allow oil, gas and mining companies to drill and mine resources that belong to the American people for free. The bill would also ensure that taxpayers get a proper return when oil and mining companies use public resources.and a full summary of the various portions of the bill is available following the end of this release.
"At a time when American families are having a tough time putting food on the table, there is no excuse to continue the free lunch policies for oil, gas and mining companies," said Rep. Markey, the Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee. "Rather than following the GOP strategy of giving away more public lands to these extractive industries, we should ensure that the industries looking to use our resources will pay American taxpayers what they rightfully deserve."
"It makes no sense for American taxpayers to subsidize the most profitable companies in the history of the world," said Rep. Holt, the Ranking Member of the Energy and Minerals Subcommittee. "As the supercommittee seeks to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending, the clear place to start is by eliminating these Big Oil giveaways and by ensuring that American taxpayers are fairly compensated for oil and gas extracted from our public lands."
The legislation was also cosponsored by Democratic Reps. Grijalva, Kildee, Napolitano, Bordallo, and Christensen.
The legislation proposed by Natural Resources Democrats, along with other proposals included in their suggestions to the debt supercommittee, would save tens of billions of dollars that could be used to reduce our national budget deficit and pay down our national debt. In contrast, proposals by Natural Resources Republicans would likely only raise a few billion dollars over the next ten years.
The proposals sent by Natural Resources Democrats to the supercommittee, and a comparison to the inadequate Republican schemes, can be found HERE. Summary of the Fair Payment for Energy and Mineral Production on Public Lands Act
TITLE I-USE IT ACT
A review by the Interior Department in March documented that energy companies hold thousands of leases covering millions of acres, both on and off-shore, on which they are not producing. This section would impose an escalating fee on these non-producing leases starting at $4 per acre and rising to $8 per acre to incentivize production and raise revenue. It is estimated that this fee would generate nearly $1 billion over ten years while also increasing domestic energy production. This Administration has called for the implementation of such a fee on non-producing leases.
TITLE II-DEFICIT REDUCTION THROUGH FAIR OIL ROYALTIES
Thanks to an oil company court challenge to a 1995 law, oil companies are able to drill on some leases in the Gulf of Mexico without paying any royalties to the American taxpayers. This section would incentivize these companies to renegotiate these leases in order to pay a fair return to the public, which could save taxpayers more than $9 billion over 10 years according to the Department of the Inte
