Posted on 03/02/2006 11:29:07 AM PST by soccer_maniac
WASHINGTON - How it happened or who's responsible is a mystery eight years after the fact. But what may have been a simple error — or perhaps something more ominous — has given a multimillion-dollar windfall to a group of oil and gas companies and could cost the government billions of dollars more in the years to come.
The Interior Department disclosed Wednesday that a provision was mysteriously deleted from hundreds of federal drilling leases in the late 1990s that would have required producers to pay royalties, once prices reached a certain level, on oil or gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Bush wasn't in office, but he KNEW! Dontchaknow!
That was the first thought that came to mind... did someone say Clinton??
Yeah, right down there after they say they proved Bigfoot lives in Arizona now.
Can you say Occidental??? Isn't Gore a "big Oil" man?
It's obviously Bush's fault. Somehow Dick Cheney and Karl Rove got Bush to force Slick Willie to allow those nasty oil companies to steal billions from the poor. Don't forget, Willie did not have sex with those oil companies!
How it happened or who's responsible is a mystery eight years after the fact. But what may have been a simple error — or perhaps something more ominous — has given a multimillion-dollar windfall to a group of oil and gas companies and could cost the government billions of dollars more in the years to come.
You do have a point. You do have a very good point GS.
bttt
Yep! What did he know and when did he know it?
Add that to the unpunished serious crimes by the Trailer Park King and Queen...
Translation from Knee jerk Wolfie Democrat speak "Dang it. It happened under Clinton. Now I will have to go into self righteous pompous mode and try to scream bile at Freeper to divert them rather then actually DISCUSS the facts of the matter"
You're absolutely right!
You DUers would set things right.
Right?
Right?
Hello?!!?
December 7, 2000
Barney Congdon
(504) 736-2595
Caryl Fagot
(504) 736-2590
Debra Winbush
(504) 736-2597
MMS Awards Deep Water Royalty Relief to Fifth Field in the Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced that deep water royalty relief has been granted to Chevron U.S.A., Inc., to develop the Green Canyon Block 236 field offshore Louisiana. Royalties will be suspended on the first 87.5 million barrels of oil equivalent produced from the field, nicknamed Typhoon.
The Green Canyon Block 236 field lies partially in water deeper than 800 meters, about 175 miles south-southwest of New Orleans. Chevron operates the leases in the Green Canyon Block 236 field, which also consists of Green Canyon Block 237.
"Chevron’s Typhoon project demonstrates the important positive role that our discretionary royalty relief program can play in deep water exploration and development decisions," stated MMS Director Walt Rosenbusch. "Operators can now explore risky high-cost prospects with more confidence, knowing that they may qualify for royalty relief if they make a discovery that is uneconomic with the inclusion of sunk costs. In these cases, the operators will qualify for royalty relief by demonstrating that if relief were granted the discovery would be profitable to develop on a forward-looking basis."
The Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (DWRRA), signed by President Clinton in November 1995, allows the Secretary of the Interior to grant royalty suspension volumes on both producing and non-producing fields in water deeper than 200 meters to promote development, increase production, or encourage marginal production of Gulf of Mexico leases lying west of 87 degrees, 30 minutes West longitude. Since 1995, the MMS has granted requests for deep water royalty relief for four other fields in the Gulf.
MMS is the Federal agency that manages the Nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. The agency also collects, accounts for, and disburses over $5 billion per year in revenues from Federal offshore mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on Federal and Indian lands.
Which would be fine if government didn't turn around and take what it thinks it needs from the People anyway.
It'd rather it came from sources like this.
;)
Hm....
I thought Bush was the friend of big oil - but eight years ago the Clintons were in charge....
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