[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1813 Introduced in House (IH)]

  1st Session
                                H. R. 1813

To establish a Minerals Management Service within the Department of the 
                   Interior, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              June 9, 1995

 Mr. Ehrlich (for himself and Mr. Radanovich) introduced the following 
         bill; which was referred to the Committee on Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To establish a Minerals Management Service within the Department of the 
                   Interior, and for other purposes.
    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Minerals Management Service Organic 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds that:
            (1) The Outer Continental Shelf currently produces roughly 
        \1/4\ of our supply of natural gas and \1/8\ of domestically 
        produced oil.
            (2) Because of the large resource potential of the Outer 
        Continental Shelf, the importance of its oil and natural gas 
        production is expected to grow.
            (3) The Minerals Management Service was created in 1982 
        following a recommendation of the Commission on Fiscal 
        Accountability to the effect that consolidating mineral revenue 
        collection and offshore minerals management in a single agency 
        would result in better management of the Nation's offshore 
        mineral resources.
            (4) The Minerals Management Service has matured into an 
        agency that possesses the requisite technical and 
        administrative skills to manage the Outer Continental Shelf oil 
        and gas properly and efficiently.
            (5) The Minerals Management Service has great institutional 
        knowledge about the program and about the industry that has 
        built up around it.
            (6) The Minerals Management Service routinely collects 
        revenue in excess of $5,000,000,000 per year that is deposited 
        to the General Fund of the Treasury. Some of these receipts are 
        shared with coastal States and some are transferred to the Land 
        and Water Conservation Fund that benefits all 50 States.
            (7) Because the energy resources of the Outer Continental 
        Shelf belong to the whole Nation and are of national 
        significance, strong unified management of the sort provided by 
        the Minerals Management Service is required.
            (8) Disruption of the program by making radical changes in 
        the way it is managed could tend to discourage needed new 
        investment in further Outer Continental Shelf exploration and 
        development projects and cause that investment to be made 
        elsewhere.
            (9) The orderly and highly productive development of the 
        energy resources in the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico 
        planning areas clearly demonstrate the Minerals Management 
        Service's ability to manage Outer Continental Shelf resources 
        and collect the revenue those resources produce in a 
        professional and efficient manner.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF MINERALS MANAGEMENT SERVICE.

    There is established in the Department of the Interior a service to 
be called the Minerals Management Service, which shall be under the 
charge of a Director who shall report to the Assistant Secretary for 
Land and Minerals Management. The Director shall be appointed by the 
President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall 
be compensated at the rate provided for Level V of the Executive 
Schedule under section 5315 of title 5 of the United States Code. The 
Director shall be appointed on the basis of professional competence and 
capacity to administer the provisions of this Act. There shall also be 
in said service such subordinate officers, clerks, and employees as may 
be appropriated for by Congress. The service thus established shall 
promote and regulate the use of lands on the Outer Continental Shelf 
for purposes of energy and mineral resources exploration, production, 
and development, and shall administer a program responsible for the 
timely and accurate collection, distribution, accounting for and 
auditing of revenues owed by holders of mineral leases on Federal and 
offshore and Indian lands. The service shall administer its functions 
by such means as are reasonably necessary to carry out the purposes of 
this Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1301 et 
seq.), the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 181-287), and the Federal Oil 
and Gas Royalty Management Act (30 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), and all other 
applicable Federal laws.
                                 <all>