Landrieu: New Gulf Coast Lease Sale Highlights Need for Accelerated Revenue Sharing

Statement

Following today's announcement by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that it will offer more than 21 million acres offshore for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area, U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, renewed her call for accelerated revenue sharing. States that produce offshore oil, gas and renewable energy receive next to nothing for this production currently, and are held to an arbitrary $500 million cap on any revenues they receive when GOMESA goes into full effect in 2017.

Sen. Landrieu's Fixing America's Inequities with Revenues (FAIR) Act will ensure all energy producing states receive a fair share of the revenues they help produce, regardless of the type of energy. The legislation will also gradually lift the current congressionally mandated $500 million annual cap on revenues kept by Gulf Coast producing states.

"Today's announcement of a Western Gulf of Mexico lease sale is a stark reminder of an inequity that offshore producing states have been fighting for decades. While coastal states like Louisiana have shared in virtually none of the revenues from the energy we produce off our shores, states that produce energy on federal lands onshore receive 50 percent of these revenues. That is why I joined Senator Lisa Murkowski to introduce the FAIR Act, to allow coastal states to keep up to 37.5 percent of revenues for all offshore energy production," Sen. Landrieu said.

Source