Feds share energy production revenue

Idaho was among the 35 states to receive a combined $2.59 billion from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service, agency officials said Nov. 20. The funds were released as part of a program that shares revenue collected from royalties, rents and bonuses related to energy production on federal on- and offshore tracts.

“These disbursements, particularly in today’s economic climate, represent an increasingly important source of revenue to the federal government, to state governments and to Native American communities,” Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a teleconference with reporters.

Idaho received nearly $2 million under the program, and was one of six states given a portion of $9.1 million in receipts from geothermal energy production. Idaho’s share of the alternative energy funds, which were allocated directly to the counties in which geothermal production occurred, went to Bonneville, Bingham, Caribou, Cassia and Washington counties.

“As a former governor and mayor, I know this funding is even more crucial to states today as they struggle to maintain their own budgets,” Kempthorne said, alluding to his past positions as Idaho governor and mayor of Boise.

Wyoming received the largest total disbursement – in excess of $1.2 billion – while Tennessee received the smallest – just $99.

About $20 billion was also given to Native American and federal accounts, with $534 million going to 34 tribes and 30,000 individual Native American mineral owners, and $17.3 billion going to the U.S. Treasury.

Kempthorne said this year’s $23.4 billion disbursement “shattered” the 2007 total of $11.6 billion, in part due to higher energy prices and more than $10 billion in bonus bids paid by companies to lease tracts for offshore energy exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, as well as from onshore lease sales.

Portions of the funds will also go into several special use accounts, including $2 billion to the Reclamation Fund for water projects, $897 million to the Land & Water Conservation Fund and $150 million to the Historic Preservation Fund.  
Since the establishment of the Minerals Management Services in 1982 it has distributed more than $200 billion to state, federal and tribal accounts. In the past seven years states alone have received $12.6 billion.