Listening to Anonia Juhasz on Fresh Air, did others know we failed to collect oil & gas royalties?

[mod mom]

Ms Juhasz said that a Clinton era loophole allowed Companies to stop paying royalties on gas and oil rights owned to the US Government.

Here is some of what I found:

Report Says Oil Royalties Go Unpaid
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: December 7, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — An eight-month investigation by theInterior Department’s chief watchdog has found pervasive problems in the government’s program for ensuring that companies pay the royalties they owe on billions of dollars of oil and gas pumped on federal land and in coastal waters.

-snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/washington/07royalty.html



Those trigger points — currently about $35 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas — have been exceeded for the last several years and are likely to stay that way for the rest of the decade.

So why is the amount of royalty-free gas and oil expected to double over the next five years?

The biggest reason is that the Clinton administration, apparently worried about the continued lack of interest in new drilling, waived the price triggers for all leases awarded in 1998 and 1999.

At the same time, many oil and gas companies contend that Congress never authorized the Interior Department to set price thresholds for any deepwater leases awarded between 1996 and 2000.

The dispute has been simmering for months, with some industry executives warning the Bush administration that they would sue the government if it tried to demand royalties.

-snip

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0214-01.htm







The G.A.O.'s most optimistic prediction calls for a loss to the government of $20 billion in royalties, even though this assumes that energy prices will be above the "threshold levels" over the next 25 years.

Half of that stems from a blunder during the Clinton administration, when officials omitted the price-threshold restriction from all offshore leases signed in 1998 and 1999.

The other half results from the legal victory by energy companies in 2003, which more than doubled the amount of royalty-free oil and gas they could produce.

-snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/business/29leases.html



Lawmakers express outrage over how Ms. Burton and other top officials glossed over the error that occurred when the Interior Department signed 1,100 offshore leases in 1998 and 1999 that let deepwater drillers escape royalties regardless of how high oil and gas prices might climb.

The incentives were supposed to stop if oil prices climbed above a ''threshold price'' of $34 a barrel, but leasing officials omitted the escape clause for two years.

Though midlevel officials spotted their mistake in 2000, Interior officials never mentioned the mistake in public and never tried to fix the leases until 2006.

-snip

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E5DA1030F935A25752C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

WTF COLLECT BACK ROYALTIES! WE HAVE A HUGE NATIONAL DEBT, LET THESE PROFITEERS PAY THEIR DUES-WITH INTEREST!

[bean fidhleir]

1. Oh good, a new revelation about how the darling of the DLC screwed us.

What a prize that man was. He's the toxic waste that keeps on polluting.

[aquart]

5. Did Clinton sign a directive ordering this?

Did he tell someone to do it? Was the decision made on a lower level? My, but you are quick to accuse. Show me where Clinton knew this was happening.

You know, Hillary lost the primary. It would be nice if you stopped this fucking crap now.

[bean fidhleir]

7. Are you sure you're not confused?

Whatever happened, seems to have happened on Clinton's watch. So he carries the can until exonerated.

And I don't know what the reference to Hillary is all about. If it's important to you, you'll have to explain it to me.

[mod mom]

2. "An official overseeing oil leases says he was directed in the 1990s to remove a provision"

(CBS/AP) An official overseeing oil leases says he was directed in the 1990s to remove a provision concerning royalty payments, creating a financial windfall for oil companies, an Interior Department official says.

Inspector General Earl Devaney also unleashed a broad rebuke of his department's record on ethics.

He testified Wednesday at a House hearing that the leasing official's claim could not be verified despite a lengthy investigation and a polygraph test, which the official passed. He said the official implicated three people, but all denied making such a directive, and one also passed a polygraph.

Devaney, the department's internal watchdog for seven years, said he could not say if anyone will be disciplined over the oil royalty mistake. It involved thousands of leases issued in 1998-99 without a section that would have required royalty payments if oil prices reached a certain level.

-snip
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/13/politics/main2007122.shtml



One BIG FUCKING Money Party!
:mad:

[mod mom]

3. Listen here to the interview on WHYY's Fresh Air:

Antonia Juhasz: 'Tyranny of Oil' Is A Grave Threat

Listen Now <28 min 23 sec> add to playlist

Antonia Juhasz has served as an adviser for two members of Congress. HarperCollins


The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry—and What We Must Do to Stop It
By Antonia Juhasz


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95465269


Fresh Air from WHYY, October 7, 2008 · Author and activist Antonia Juhasz argues that the oil industry's grip on policy and government has never been stronger.

What's more, Juhasz says, the business and politics of oil's production pose such grave implications on so many fronts — the environment, human rights, the economy, worker safety, public health — that the current state of petroleum-industry affairs is fundamentally antithetical to democracy.

Juhasz, a fellow at the petro-critic organization Oil Change International and at the Institute for Policy Studies, documents her concerns — and lays out proposed remedies — in her new book, The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry — and What We Must Do to Stop It.

[NJCher]

4. she's speaking here on Nov. 15

At our peace action soup luncheon. I wouldn't miss this for the world!!

http://www.njpeaceaction.org/

For northern New Jerseyans--at the above link, scroll down a bit and you will see the notice.



Cher

[sandnsea]

6. The "Lack of Interest in New Drilling"

Which is why they took the restrictions out altogether.

Drilling is not cost effective. There isn't enough oil in almost any given spot to matter.