[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4340 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4340

 To simplify Federal oil and gas revenue distributions, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 13, 2000

   Mr. Udall of New Mexico (for himself, Mrs. Cubin, and Mr. Skeen) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                               Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To simplify Federal oil and gas revenue distributions, 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 ``Mineral Revenue Payments 
Clarification Act of 2000''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Subtitle C of title X of the Omnibus Budget 
        Reconciliation Act of 1993 (Public Law 103-66) changed the 
        sharing of onshore mineral revenues and revenues from 
        geothermal steam from a 50:50 split between the Federal 
        Government and the States to a complicated formula, which 
        provides that ``50 percent of the portion of the enacted 
        appropriation of the Department of the Interior and any other 
        agency during the preceding fiscal year allocable to the 
        administration of all laws providing for the leasing of any 
        onshore lands or interest in land owned by the United States 
        for the production of the same types of minerals leasable under 
        this Act or of geothermal steam, and to enforcement of such 
        laws, shall be deducted from the receipts derived under those 
        laws in approximately equal amounts each month (subject to 
        paragraph (4)) prior to the division and distribution of such 
        receipts between the States and the United States.''.
            (2) The system put in place by this change in law has 
        proved difficult to administer and has given rise to disputes 
        between the Federal Government and the States as to the nature 
        of allocable expenses. Federal accounting systems have proven 
        to be poorly suited to breaking down administrative costs in 
        the manner required by the law. Different Federal agencies 
        implementing this law have used varying methodologies to 
        identify allocable costs, resulting in an inequitable 
        distribution of costs during fiscal years 1994 through 1996. In 
        November, 1997, the Inspector General of the Department of the 
        Interior found that ``the congressionally approved method for 
        cost sharing deductions effective in fiscal year 1997 may not 
        accurately compute the deductions.''.
            (3) Given the complexity and administrative burden 
        involved, a return to the sharing formula as last amended by 
        Public Law 100-203 is justified.

SEC. 3. AMENDMENT OF THE MINERAL LEASING ACT.

    Section 35(b) of the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 191(b)) is 
amended to read as follows:
    ``(b) In determining the amount of payments to the States under 
this section, the amount of such payments shall not be reduced by any 
administrative or other costs incurred by the United States.''.
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