Zero Hedge | April 12, 2024
One week after the Biden administration slapped new regulations on key power grid components, the Washington Post reports that US oil and gas companies will face a 15-fold increase in costs to drill on federal land, under a new rule released on Friday.
Under it, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will require drillers to pay $150,000 per lease on federal lands, up from $10,000 – the first comprehensive update to the federal oil and gas leasing program in over three decades.
Fossil fuel companies will also be required to pay higher royalties to the government on oil and gas extracted from federal lands – jumping from 12.5% of revenue to 16.67%.
That’s not all…
As our old buddy Gomer used to say: “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise !!!”
One might reasonably ask: how did the federal government come to ‘own’ so much land?