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 ...
All true, but recall that the IEA had crashed the price with their report, and oil was far cheaper than spring water by the gallon at the grocery store. (Ten cents per gallon for sour crude, under 15 cents for sweet, depending on the source.)
So maybe they left it out on purpose just so they could sell leases, or they would have really looked bad.
Otherwise, they were busy taking land off of the minerals exploration rolls (Escalante Staircase National Monument comes to mind, and the gold mine three valleys over from Yellowstone.)
Thanks for the info! Be interesting to see if this goes anywhere. It's just the taxpayers' money after all. Grrrrr....
Indeed...
I don't care... besides the Republicans were in control of Congress, so they are most likely at fault.
Hmmm. A wee bit too freudian.
Have you seen this?
Official: Feds made clerical error. Lawmakers want probe into '98 change in energy leases
No, I hadn't-- thanks for calling my attention to it. I'll see if I can puzzle it out.
'98. The year Toon was impeached. Interesting timing.
You are joking, right?
No. Just wishfully thinking.
:-)
bttt
Has anybody checked Sandy Berger's socks for the missing docs?
I agree, windfall profit taxes should be illegal. The oil companies pay enough in taxes as it is, not to mention the billions they pay to comply with envirowacco regulations.
I'm surprised so many here are so liberal on this.
"Here's an idea: agree to restore the royalties, retroactively, or we double them going forward, or when it comes time for renewal, whichever is earlier."
Oh yeah, raise the taxes on those EEVIL oil companies that way your gas prices will be so much cheaper! Give me a break.
Where did I suggest that we raise taxes on oil companies? Or that they are evil? Windfall profits taxes are counterproductive.
What I do suggest is that a party deriving income from natural resources on another's land should pay a royalty to the landowner. It seems that was the intent here, however, someone's screwup let the royalty agreement expire. The landowner, in this case the government, ought to get paid the royalties that were intended, and if they can't legally demand them retroactively, they should change the terms going forward in order to make up for this mistake. Why should private parties be able to take the resources that belong to all of us without adequate compensation?
"Clinton found a way"....You recall the "tucking Away" of low sulphur coal by him in our western states?....You recall who owns BIG same kind coal over in the far east......RIADY....million dollar donor they said to Klintoon's early campaign..Yep, Ol' Slick pays his debts!
"The landowner, in this case the government, ought to get paid the royalties that were intended, and if they can't legally demand them retroactively, they should change the terms going forward in order to make up for this mistake. Why should private parties be able to take the resources that belong to all of us without adequate compensation?"
These leases do have costs which the oil companies pay up front. What these royalties are is a windfall profit tax on the product if the price exceeds a certain amount.~ $35.00/barrel
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