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Fossil Fuel Royalty Payments

Governor Mark Gordon has issued the following statement in response to the Biden Administration’s announcement it plans to withdraw a Trump administration rule lowering royalty payments on fossil fuels.

The list of anti-fossil fuel actions implemented by the Biden Administration without prior consultation with fossil fuel Governors just keeps getting longer. This announcement is clearly a pattern, and the effort to justify this withdrawal based on harm to the U.S. taxpayer is disingenuous.

If the Administration was truly concerned about the taxpayer, it would not have canceled the on- and offshore oil and gas lease sales this year, sales that often bring in millions of dollars of revenues to taxpayers. Fossil fuel companies can only pay royalties if they are producing. Increasing royalty rates when the coal, oil and gas industries are still attempting to recover from 2020 is just kicking the industry when it is down. When those companies go out of business, no royalties are collected, less money is set aside for reclamation activities and the price of gasoline will continue to rise.

Find Governor Mark Gordon’s Bulletin here.