The $3.1 billion that oil and gas producers paid the federal government for leases under the 1995 Deep Water Royalty Relief Act was only the beginning of the law's benefits for the US economy, two studies commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute said.Leaseholders also spent $37 billion to develop the deepwater Gulf of Mexico tracts, paid billions of dollars more in production-related taxes, created thousands of jobs, and pumped billions of dollars into the domestic economy, the studies indicated."While this act was primarily intended to encourage oil production at a time when the nation was in desperate need of new oil supplies, these studies show that they were also a boon t...