GOP senators ask Obama to stop attacks on OCS revenue sharing

March 9, 2015
Seven Republican US senators asked US President Barack Obama to reconsider his proposal to deprive Gulf Coast states of a fair share of revenue from energy produced off their shores in federally controlled waters as promised under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA).

Seven Republican US senators asked US President Barack Obama to reconsider his proposal to deprive Gulf Coast states of a fair share of revenue from energy produced off their shores in federally controlled waters as promised under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA).

“All energy producing states deserve to share the revenue derived from energy developed both onshore and offshore,” Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Lisa Murkowski (Alas.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), David Vitter (La.), and Roger Wicker (Miss.) said in their Mar. 4 letter to the president.

Responsible revenue sharing allows states hosting federal energy production to mitigate impacts on their systems and make strategic investments to ensure that infrastructure will be resilient, the senators said.

“For these reasons, we not only oppose and reject your budget proposal eroding the revenue sharing provisions in GOMESA, but will actively pursue efforts to minimize the disparity by bringing equal treatment in revenue sharing among energy producing states,” they said.

The administration’s fiscal 2016 budget request to Congress proposed offshore revenue reforms which it said would save $367-475 million/year starting in 2017. This would raise federal OCS oil and gas revenue an estimated $1.77 trillion through 2020 and nearly $3.07 trillion through 2025, it said.

“It’s extremely important that we have a level of revenue sharing that fairly compensates coastal states that host energy production off their shores,” said Murkowski, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“The administration’s attempt to deprive coastal states of that revenue is way off base,” Murkowski said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].