The Biden administration announced lease sales for oil and gas drilling on federal land Friday, but said it would sharply reduce the acreage available for leases and charge higher royalties on the oil and gas produced.
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The Interior Department said it would make roughly 144,000 acres available for oil and gas drilling through a series of lease sales, an 80% reduction from the footprint of land that had been under evaluation for leasing.
Companies will also be required to pay royalties of 18.75% of the value of what they extract, up from 12.5%. Royalties for onshore oil and gas drilling generated about $1.5 billion to $3 billion a year for the U.S. Treasury during the last decade, according to the Congressional Research Service
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