As Profits Soar, Companies Pay U.S. Less for Gas Rights

[Judi Lynn]

January 23, 2006
As Profits Soar, Companies Pay U.S. Less for Gas Rights
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - At a time when energy prices and industry profits are soaring, the federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters.

If royalty payments in fiscal 2005 for natural gas had risen in step with market prices, the government would have received about $700 million more than it actually did, a three-month investigation by The New York Times has found.

But an often byzantine set of federal regulations, largely shaped and fiercely defended by the energy industry itself, allowed companies producing natural gas to provide the Interior Department with much lower sale prices - the crucial determinant for calculating government royalties - than they reported to their shareholders.

As a result, the nation's taxpayers, collectively, the biggest owner of American oil and gas reserves, have missed much of the recent energy bonanza.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/politics/23leases.html?ei=5065&en=2b56e8f6ac332a04&ex=1138683600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

via Raw Story

[maddezmom]

1. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2059007