I find your position WITHOUT foundation especially with our desire to use public land for recreation or transportation.
Why ... because you ride a snowmobile. You probably ride on public land. If not a snowmobile perhaps an automobile , truck, boat or train.
To declare it is accepted program to have socialized "public" transportation and not some type of "public" oil program?
Or as I am saying our "public" energy policy should be refined and optimized?
People seem to imply the government is not involved in the oil industry?
You're kidding me ???
During most of the twentieth century, oil and gas companies generally paid between 12.5 and 16.7 percent in royalties for a lease to drill on public land or water.
Here is one small tiny part of ther proiblem:
In 1995, both houses of Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (S.395), which granted a royalty "holiday" to oil and gas companies drilling in government-owned deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico for leases sold between 1996 and 2000. Specifically, under the program, companies would not have to pay the normal royalties except when market prices reached $34 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet for natural gas. At the time, oil and gas prices were fairly low, and supporters of the bill argued it would provide an incentive for petroleum companies to drill for oil and natural gas inside the U.S.
In 2004 the Interior Department estimated the above act will eventually cost the government as much as $80 billion in lost revenue on royalties from leases issued from 1996 to 2000. In 2007 the Government Accountability Office estimated that the government had already lost about $1 billion but that outstanding lawsuits and other complications made an accurate estimate impossible until they were resolved.
THANK YOU BILL CLINTON !
In 2004, after oil and gas prices had risen substantially over the previous several years, Interior Secretary Gale Norton offered royalty incentives to shallow-water producers.[3] Specifically, Norton raised the threshold prices by which companies would need to begin paying royalties. The Interior Department originally proposed a cut-off price for royalty exemptions of $5 per million British thermal units (BTU's), but the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents smaller producers, argued that the new incentive would be useless because natural gas prices were already above $5. Ultimately, Norton set the threshold at $9.34. Shirley Neff, an economist at Columbia University, stated "There is no cost rationale...It is astounding to me that the administration would so blatantly cave in to the industry's demands."
YOU GO GEORGE !!!
In 2005, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6). which included a variety of provisions to provide royalty relief to oil and gas companies. Environmental and taxpayer groups criticized the legislation. Sara Zdeb, Legislative Director of Friends of the Earth, criticized the legislation as it came out of conference, saying, “the bill hands over billions in taxpayer dollars to America’s worst polluting industries while shortchanging renewable energy and energy efficiency—proven solutions that reduce our dependence on oil.”
There you go Congress.
