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Witnesses warn royalties, leasing and bonding shortfalls leave taxpayers exposed
Summary
Nonpartisan witnesses and committee members said royalty rates, noncompetitive leasing, insufficient bonding and methane waste have cost taxpayers revenue and created future liabilities; industry argued for modernization but emphasized progress on methane intensity reductions.
Taxpayers and watchdog groups told the subcommittee that longstanding weaknesses in onshore oil and gas leasing and oversight have left money and liability on the table.
Autumn Hanna of Taxpayers for Common Sense said the Department of the Interior had been on the Government Accountability Office’s high‑risk list for more than a decade and that the agency has not implemented many of the GAO's recommendations. Hanna testified that the federal government historically charged an outdated onshore royalty rate and that increases implemented in 2022 — raising an onshore royalty rate to 16.667% and tightening noncompetitive leasing and bonding — had been…
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