The U.S. Interior Department says that it would form a new committee to review royalty rates collected from oil and gas drilling and coal mining on federal lands to ensure taxpayers receive their full value.
Reuters reports Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says the committee would advise him on whether the government is getting a fair price from companies that lease public land for energy and natural resource development.
The committee also will replace the process former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell implemented to review and overhaul the federal coal leasing program.
“The programmatic review put in place (by Jewell) was costly and unnecessary,” Zinke says.
“I have established a royalty policy committee to provide advice to me about how we value collections across the board.”
In January 2016, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration began a multiyear review of the federal coal leasing program after government and watchdog reports found Interior’s Bureau of Land Management was not properly accounting for the fair market value of coal.
Zinke’s committee will instead get recommendations on adjusting royalty rates for coal, as well as oil and gas, from a panel of up to 28 members that includes Interior Department officials, representatives of western states and Indian tribes that produce energy, energy stakeholders and academic groups who will serve three-year terms.
