The federal government oversees 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate in the U.S. and close to 60 million acres of public land in Nevada alone, which contains valuable, taxpayer-owned resources. Every year, oil and gas developers produce hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas on federal lands. The current federal oil and gas system has allowed hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Nevada to be locked into non-producing leasing, preventing other potential uses and limiting returns to the public. In Nevada, only 72 oil and gas leases have ever entered production since 1953. Currently, more than 95% of acres leased for oil and gas production remain nonproducing. Additionally, over the last decade, federal taxpayers have lost $34 million from outdated and below-market leasing terms in Nevada. The federal royalty rate, rental rate, and bonding requirements have contributed to substantial taxpayer losses as well as growing taxpayer liabilities from abandoned oil and gas wells.

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