Senator Pete Domenici led a raid on the U.S. Treasury at New Mexico's expense during last minute bill passage manuevers while the Republicans were still in power in Congress. He insisted on passage of a bill that gives a large chunk of newly opened Gulf Coast oil and gas lease royalties to four southern states. That money would normally go to the US Treasury for the benefit of all Americans. Domenici probably did this to get southern states support for opening up these oil and gas areas for Pete's good buddies in the Oil and Gas Industry. Now, in fairness New Mexico already gets a lot of the Federal Oil and Gas revenues that is produced in New Mexico, but the offshore reserves are usually allocated to national use. Pete was looking out more for his industry supporters than his constituents on this one.
In the meantime we are repeatedly hearing about the US Interior Department's inability to collect royalties that are already owed to the government. Hundreds of millions, or even billions, may be lost to puny auditing by the Feds. This is costing New Mexico a bundle too.
Now, one has to wonder if the Legislative Finance Committee might look into New Mexico's oil and gas royalty collections. Are they being honest with us. During the campaign for Land Commissioner I heard from some producers that there might be problems in that area as well as the 'unitizing' of state oil and gas leases. This would protect companies from having to relinquish their leases because their ten years for producing the leases had lapsed. If they weren't unitized then the land office would put then out for bid again and get bonus income. This little process would save the companies a bundle and cost the land office just as much.
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