Durbin is up now to pile on
They are very loosey goosey in their use of language. There is no real subsidy here and the taxpayer doesn't pay anything to the oil companies. What happened here is the government made deals with the companies that wanted to drill on federal land. The government now doesn't like the deal and wants to change it.
Wyden just mangled it again:"We don't need record royalty payments." That is just what he does want. Durbin is sooooo slimy.