Testimony 

Before the Committee on Natural 

Resources, U.S. House of Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 11:00 a.m. EDT 

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 ROYALTIES COLLECTION

Ongoing Problems with 

Interior’s Efforts to Ensure 

A Fair Return for Taxpayers 

Require Attention 

Statement of Mark Gaffigan, Acting Director 

Natural Resources and Environment 

GAO-07-682T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

March 28, 2007

ROYALTIES COLLECTION 

Ongoing Problems with Interior’s Efforts 

to Ensure a Fair Return for Taxpayers 

Require Attention 

Highlights of GAO-07-682T, a testimony 

before the Committee on Natural 

Resources, United States House of

Representatives 

The Department of the Interior’s 

Minerals Management Service

(MMS) is charged with collecting

and administering royalties paid by 

companies developing fossil and 

renewable energy resources on 

federal lands and within federal 

waters. To promote development 

of oil and natural gas, fossil 

resources vital to meeting the 

nation’s energy needs, the federal 

government at times has provided 

“royalty relief” waiving or reducing

the royalties that companies must 

pay. In these cases, relief is

typically applicable only if prices

remain below certain threshold 

levels. Oil and gas royalties can be

taken at MMS’s discretion either “in 

value” as cash or “in kind” as a 

share of the product itself. 

Additionally, MMS also collects 

royalties on the development of 

geothermal energy resources—a

renewable source of heat and 

electricity—on federal lands. 

This statement provides (1) an 

update of our work regarding the 

fiscal impacts of royalty relief for 

leases issued under the Deep Water

Royalty Relief Act of 1995; (2) a

description of our recent work on 

the administration of the royalties

in kind program, as well as ongoing 

work on related issues; and 

(3) information on the challenges

to collecting geothermal royalties 

identified in our recent work. 

To address these issues we relied 

on recent GAO reports on oil, gas, 

and geothermal royalty collection 

systems. We are also reviewing key 

MMS estimates and data.

The absence of price thresholds in oil and gas leases issued by MMS in 1998

and 1999 has already cost the government about $1 billion and the agency 

has recently estimated that future foregone royalties would be $6.4 billion to 

$9.8 billion over the lives of the leases. Precise estimates of the actual

foregone royalties, however, are not possible at this time because future 

projections are sensitive to price and production levels, both of which are 

subject to change. MMS is currently negotiating with oil and gas companies 

to apply price thresholds to future production from these leases, with mixed 

results—only 6 of the 45 companies involved have agreed to terms. 

Moreover, a pending legal challenge to Interior’s authority to include price 

thresholds on any leases issued under the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act 

could, if successful, cost the government billions more in refunded and 

foregone revenue. 

In our most recent review of the royalty in kind (RIK) program, conducted in 

2004, we found that MMS was unable to determine whether the revenues 

received from its sales of oil taken in kind were equivalent to receiving

royalties in value, largely because it had not developed systems to rapidly 

and efficiently collect this information. We made recommendations that the 

agency has implemented that have improved the administration of the 

program as it existed at the time of our report. However, the continued 

expansion of the program raises a new question about the adequacy of the 

agency’s overall management practices and internal controls to meet the

increasing demands placed on the RIK program. Accordingly, we are 

undertaking follow-on reviews assessing, among other things, the agency’s 

ability to quantify and compare administrative costs and revenues of the RIK

and royalties in value programs and the extent to which the revenues 

collected under the RIK program are equal to or greater than what would 

have been received had they been taken in value. 

In a 2006 report on geothermal royalties, we found that missing and 

erroneous historical data, as well as insufficient data on electricity sales,

meant that MMS is unable to accurately determine whether it was collecting

royalties as directed by statute. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included 

provisions that significantly changed how geothermal royalties are 

calculated but also directed Interior to maintain the same level of royalties 

over the next ten years that would have been collected prior to the Act’s

passage. We found that making this determination requires historical data on 

sales of electricity produced from geothermal resources as well as accurate 

royalty data. However, MMS did not have sufficient historical gross revenue 

data with which to establish a baseline for past royalties paid as a 

percentage of electricity revenues. Further, about 40 percent of MMS’s 

royalty data was either missing or erroneous for the projects we reviewed. 

We recommended that MMS correct these deficiencies and the agency 

agreed. We are continuing to monitor the agency’s efforts. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-682T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Mark Gaffigan 

at 202-512-3841 or gaffiganm@gao.gov. 
Page 1 GAO-07-682T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

We are pleased to be here today to discuss our recent work on the 

administration of revenues collected from the production of fossil and 

renewable energy resources on federal lands and within federal waters. 

Companies that develop these resources do so under leases which 

generally require the payment of royalties on the resources extracted and 

produced. These leases are administered by the Minerals Management 

Service (MMS), an agency within the Department of the Interior (Interior). 

These resources include geothermal, coal, and, most notably, oil and 

natural gas (hereafter oil and gas). 

In particular, fossil energy resources from federal lands and waters are a 

critical component of the nation’s energy portfolio, supplying more than a 

third of all the oil and nearly a quarter of all the natural gas produced in 

the United States in fiscal year 2005. Oil and gas companies received over 

$77 billion from the sale of oil and gas produced from federal lands and 

waters in fiscal year 2006, and these companies paid the federal 

government about $10 billion in royalties. 

In order to promote oil and gas production, the federal government has at 

times and in specific cases provided “royalty relief”—the waiver or 

reduction of royalties that companies would otherwise be obligated to pay. 

When the government grants royalty relief, it typically specifies the 

amounts of oil and gas production that will be exempt from royalties and 

may also specify that royalty relief is applicable only if oil and gas prices 

remain below certain levels, known as “price thresholds.” For example, 

the Outer Continental Shelf Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995, also 

known as the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (DWRRA), mandated royalty 

relief for oil and gas leases issued in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico 

from 1996 to 2000. These deep water regions are particularly costly to 

explore and develop. However, as production from these leases has 

grown, and as oil and gas prices have risen dramatically in recent years, 

serious questions have been raised about the extent to which royalty relief 

has been in the interest of taxpayers. These concerns were brought into 

stark relief when it was learned that MMS issued leases in 1998 and 1999 

that failed to include the price thresholds above which royalty relief would 

no longer be applicable, making large volumes of oil and natural gas 

exempt from royalties and significantly affecting the amount of royalty 

revenues collected by the federal government. Further royalty relief is 

currently available under other legislation and programs, raising the 

prospect that the federal government may be forgoing additional royalty 

revenues. Recently, congressional committees, Interior’s Inspector 
Page 2 GAO-07-682T 

General,1 public interest groups, and the press have questioned whether 

our nation’s oil and gas royalties are being properly managed and whether 

the oil and gas industry is paying a fair share of revenue to the public 

resource owners, especially in light of high oil and gas prices, record 

industry profits, and the daunting current and long-range fiscal challenges 

facing our nation. GAO has expressed similar concerns, and the U.S. 

Comptroller General has highlighted royalty relief as an area needing 

additional oversight by the 110th Congress.2

The MMS is authorized by Congress to collect royalties “in value,” as a 

fraction of the revenues companies receive from sale of oil and gas 

produced on federal leases, or “in kind,” as a fraction of the oil and gas 

that the MMS then sells to recover the government’s share of oil and gas 

revenue. With regard to oil, while MMS has long received relatively small 

amounts of oil in kind for specific purposes, such as in a past program that 

provided royalty oil to small refiners at subsidized prices, the bulk of 

royalties have historically been collected in value. In recent years, 

however, MMS has taken a growing proportion of oil royalties in kind. 

Much of this oil was then exchanged for other oil that was put into the 

nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, over 700 million barrels of publicly 

held crude oil that is stored to ensure emergency supplies in the event of a 

significant disruption in the normal oil supply. Under the Energy Policy 

Act of 2005, MMS is charged with ensuring that the revenues it receives 

when it sells oil taken in kind are at least as great as the revenues it would 

have received had it taken the royalties in value. The recent expansion of 

the royalties in kind (RIK) program has raised the obvious question of 

whether or not this condition is being met. 

While fossil energy resources are significant, the federal government also 

manages royalties from renewable sources such as geothermal energy. 

Geothermal energy is a unique renewable energy resource in that it can 

provide a consistent and uninterrupted supply of heat and electricity. 

Companies drill wells to bring the geothermal fluids and steam to the 

surface, separate the steam from the fluids as their pressure drops, and 

use the steam to spin the blades of a turbine that generates electricity. The 

 1

Minerals Management Service’s Compliance Review Process, Department of the Interior 

Office of the Inspector General, Report No. C-IN-MMS-0006-2006 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 

2006). 

2

GAO, Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress, GAO-07-235R (Washington, 

D.C.: Nov. 17, 2006). 
Page 3 GAO-07-682T 

electricity is then sold to utilities in a manner similar to sales of electricity 

generated by hydroelectric, coal-fired, and gas-fired power plants, and the 

companies pay royalties based on the electricity sold. 

Due, in part, to increasing demand for electricity, interest is increasing in 

developing geothermal energy resources as an alternative form of 

generation. Because many areas that have the potential to produce 

additional geothermal energy are located on federal lands, the federal 

government will continue to be a major participant in the future 

development of geothermal energy. MMS collects the federal geothermal 

royalties and disburses to the state and local governments its share of 

these royalties. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, 

MMS collected $12.3 million in geothermal royalties, almost all of which 

was derived from the production of electricity. 

You asked us to provide information from our recent work on the 

administration of federal royalty revenues at MMS. My testimony today 

(1) updates our work regarding the fiscal impacts of royalty relief for 

leases issued under the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995; 

(2) describes our recent work regarding the administration of the royalties 

in kind program, as well as ongoing work on this and related issues we 

have undertaken for congressional requesters; and (3) provides 

information on the challenges to collecting and managing geothermal 

royalties that we identified in recent work. 

To address these issues, we relied on recent GAO reports related to MMS’s 

royalty collection systems for oil, gas, and geothermal resources. As part 

of our ongoing work, we also reviewed the methodology and assumptions 

used by MMS to produce their February 2007 estimate of foregone oil and 

gas royalties. Our work follows the issuance of our report last year 

explaining why oil and gas royalties have not risen at the same pace as 

rising oil and gas prices.3

 Our work was conducted in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards. 

 3

GAO, Royalty Revenues: Total Revenues Have Not Increased at the Same Pace as Rising 

Natural Gas Prices due to Decreasing Production Sold, GAO-06-786R (Washington, D.C.: 

June 21, 2006). 
Page 4 GAO-07-682T 

In summary we found: 

• The absence of price thresholds in leases issued in 1998 and 1999 has 

already cost the government about $1 billion and MMS’s most recent 

estimate indicates a range of future foregone royalties of between 

$6.4 billion and $9.8 billion over the lifetime of the leases. However, 

because there is considerable uncertainty about future oil and natural gas 

prices and production levels, actual foregone royalties could end up being 

higher or lower than MMS’s estimates. MMS is currently negotiating with 

oil and gas companies to apply price thresholds to future production from 

the 1998 and 1999 leases. To date, the results of these negotiations have 

been mixed—only 6 of the 45 companies involved have agreed to terms. 

Moreover, a pending legal challenge to Interior’s authority to include price 

thresholds on any leases issued under the DWRRA could, if successful, 

cost the government billions more in refunded and foregone revenue. 

• In our most recent audit of the RIK program, conducted in 2004, we found 

that MMS had not collected the necessary information to determine 

whether or not the revenues received from its sales of royalty oil were 

equivalent to receiving royalties in value, largely because it had not 

developed information systems to rapidly and efficiently collect this 

information. We made recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior 

that the agency has implemented and that have improved the 

administration of the program as it existed at the time. However, the 

continued expansion of the program raises additional questions about the 

adequacy of the agency’s overall management practices and internal 

controls to meet the increasing demands of the program. Accordingly, at 

the request of Congress, we are undertaking a follow-on review assessing, 

among other things, the agency’s ability to quantify and compare 

administrative costs and revenues of the RIK and royalties in value 

programs and the extent to which the revenues collected under the RIK 

program are equal to or greater than what would have been received had 

they been taken in value. 

• In a 2006 report on geothermal royalties, we found that MMS had 

erroneous and missing historical geothermal royalty data and did not 

collect sufficient data from royalty payors to accurately asses whether 

MMS was collecting the amount of royalties required by statute. The 

Energy Policy Act of 2005 included provisions that significantly changed 

how geothermal royalties are calculated but also instructed the Secretary 

of the Interior to seek to maintain the same aggregate level of royalties 

over the next ten years that would have been collected prior to the Act’s 

passage. We found that in order to compare royalties collected under the 

provisions of the Act with what would have been collected under the old 
Page 5 GAO-07-682T 

system would require historical data on gross revenues from geothermal 

electricity sales as well as accurate royalty data. However, we found that 

MMS did not have sufficient historical gross revenue data with which to 

establish a baseline for past royalties paid as a percentage of electricity 

revenues. Further, about 40 percent of MMS’s royalty data was either 

missing or erroneous for the projects we reviewed. In our report we 

recommended that the Secretary of the Interior direct MMS to correct 

these deficiencies and the agency agreed with our findings and 

recommendations. We are continuing to monitor the agency’s efforts to 

address these shortcomings. 

Interior oversees and manages the nation’s publicly owned natural 

resources, including parks, wildlife habitat, and crude oil and natural gas 

resources on over 500 million acres onshore and in the waters of the Outer 

Continental Shelf (OCS). In this capacity, Interior is authorized to lease 

federal fossil and renewable energy resources and to collect the royalties 

associated with their production. These substantial revenues are disbursed 

to 38 States, 41 Indian Tribes, Interior’s Office of Trust Funds Management 

on behalf of some 30,000 individual Indian royalty owners, and to U.S. 

Treasury accounts. 

Royalties paid for fossil and renewable resources extracted from leased 

lands represent the principal source of the $12.6 billion in revenues 

managed by MMS—$10.7 billion, more than 85 percent of revenues 

received in fiscal year 2006.4

 Of these, oil and natural gas leases are the 

most significant component of royalties, composing on average nearly 

90 percent of the royalties received over the past five years. For oil and 

gas, production royalties are paid either in value or in kind. The OCS 

Lands Act of 1953, as amended, and the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, as 

amended, authorize the collection of production royalties either in value 

or in kind for federal lands leased for development onshore and on the 

OCS. Furthermore, according to MMS, the terms of virtually all federal oil 

and gas leases provide for royalties to be paid in value or in kind at the 

discretion of the lessor. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides additional 

statutory requirements to support the operation and funding of a program 

for managing federal oil and gas royalties in kind. 

 4

The remaining $1.9 billion consist of other revenues received from rent payments and 

bonuses paid by companies for successful bids on leases. 

Background 
Page 6 GAO-07-682T 

Additionally, MMS also collects revenue generated by exploration and 

development of geothermal energy resources commonly used to generate 

electricity.5

 Until recently, the Geothermal Steam Act of 1970, as amended, 

directed MMS to disburse royalties collected from geothermal energy 

development such that 50 percent of geothermal royalties be retained by 

the federal government and the other 50 percent be disbursed to the states 

in which the federal leases are located.6

 A provision of the Energy Policy 

Act of 2005 changed the distribution of the royalties collected from 

geothermal resources. While 50 percent of federal geothermal royalties 

must still be disbursed to the states in which the federal leases are located, 

an additional 25 percent must be disbursed to the counties in which the 

leases are located, leaving only 25 percent to the federal government. 

As Assistant Secretary Allred of Interior recently testified before the 

Congress, the absence of price thresholds in leases issued in 1998 and 1999 

has already cost the government almost $1 billion and MMS has estimated 

a range of potential future foregone revenue for these leases of between 

$6.4 billion and $9.8 billion. MMS calculated these estimates under a range 

of assumptions about oil and natural gas prices and future production 

levels. We reviewed MMS’s assumptions and methodology for estimating 

the potential foregone revenue from 1998 and 1999 leases and found them 

to be reasonable. However, because there is considerable uncertainty 

about future oil and natural gas prices and production levels, actual 

foregone royalties could end up being higher or lower than MMS’s 

estimates. 

MMS is currently negotiating with oil and gas companies to apply price 

thresholds to future production from the 1998 and 1999 leases. If 

successful, this approach would partially undo the omission of price 

thresholds for future production, thereby implementing the royalty relief 

as though price thresholds had been included in the leases. However, the 

results of the negotiation have been mixed so far—as of late February 

2007, only 6 of 45 companies have agreed to terms, and a current legal 

 5

Geothermal energy is literally the heat of the earth. This heat is abnormally high where hot 

and molten rocks exist at shallow depths below the earth’s surface. Water, brines, and 

steam circulating within these hot rocks are collectively referred to as geothermal 

resources. 

6

30 U.S.C. § 191(a). The State of Alaska is an exception to this provision, receiving 

90 percent. 

Billions of Dollars of 

Royalty Revenue Will 

be Foregone Because 

of Problems 

Associated with 

Royalty Relief 
Page 7 GAO-07-682T 

challenge to Interior’s authority to set price thresholds on any DWRRA 

leases may further deter or complicate a negotiated settlement. 

In addition to forgone royalty revenues from leases issued in 1998 and 

1999, royalty revenues on leases issued under DWRRA in 1996, 1997, and 

2000 are also threatened pending the outcome of a legal challenge 

regarding price thresholds. Specifically, Kerr-McGee filed suit against the 

Department of the Interior in early 2006, challenging its authority to place 

price thresholds on any of the leases issued under the DWRRA. In effect, 

this suit seeks to remove price thresholds from the leases in question. In 

June 2006, Kerr-McGee agreed to enter into mediation with Interior in an 

attempt to resolve the issue; however, the mediation was unsuccessful and 

litigation has resumed. As of March 2007, the leases in question have 

generated approximately $1 billion in royalties. If the government loses 

this legal challenge, it may be required to refund these royalties—perhaps 

with interest penalties—and to forego any future royalties on these leases, 

and perhaps any lease issued during 1996, 1997, and 2000. As a result, the 

government could stand to lose billions of additional dollars. 

We reviewed the RIK pilot program for this committee in two separate 

reports in 2003 and 2004 and found that MMS did not collect the necessary 

information to effectively monitor and evaluate the program.7

 This 

information includes the administrative costs of the RIK program and the 

revenue impacts of all sales. We found that MMS lacked this information 

largely because it had not developed information systems to rapidly and 

efficiently collect this information. 

We made several recommendations in our 2003 and 2004 reports to 

address the shortcomings we identified. Specifically, to further the 

development of management controls for MMS’s RIK program, we 

recommended that the Secretary of the Interior instruct the appropriate 

managers within MMS to identify and acquire key information needed to 

monitor and evaluate performance prior to expanding the RIK program. 

We specified that such information should include the revenue impacts of 

all RIK sales, administrative costs of the RIK program, and expected 

savings in auditing revenues. We also recommended that MMS clarify the 

 7

GAO, Mineral Revenues: A More Systematic Evaluation of the Royalty-in-Kind Pilots is 

Needed, GAO-03-296 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 9, 2003) and GAO, Mineral Revenues: Cost 

and Revenue Information Needed to Compare Different Approaches for Collecting 

Federal Oil and Gas Royalties, GAO-04-448 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 16, 2004). 

The RIK Program Has 

Been Unable to 

Demonstrate Its 

Effectiveness Due to 

Data Limitations 
Page 8 GAO-07-682T 

RIK program’s strategic objectives to explicitly state that the goals of RIK 

include obtaining fair market value and collecting at least as much revenue 

as MMS would have collected in cash royalty payments. MMS agreed with 

both recommendations and has taken several steps to address these 

shortcomings. 

We acknowledge the agency’s efforts and, within the context of the 

program’s scope at the time of our report, consider our recommendations 

implemented by the agency. However, the expansion of use of RIK since 

our last review raises an additional concern. The RIK program has actively 

expanded the scope of its operations as MMS has increasingly opted to 

take royalties in kind rather than in cash. As MMS reported in its 

September 2006 Report to Congress, today’s RIK operation manages a 

significant portfolio of the nation’s oil and gas royalty assets collected 

primarily from federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico. This portfolio has 

expanded more than three-fold from 1999 to present—some 82 million 

barrels of oil equivalent were exchanged in kind in fiscal year 2005—and is 

expected to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. The Energy 

Policy Act of 2005 permanently established an RIK operation with 

administrative and business costs to be paid from royalty revenues 

generated by RIK sales, effectively transitioning the program from pilot 

status to a steady-state business operation and potentially enabling a 

further expansion of the RIK program. The Act restricts the use of RIK to 

those situations where the benefit is determined to equal or exceed the 

benefit from royalties in value prior to the sale. However, the larger scale 

of the RIK program at present makes it unclear that MMS can effectively 

and accurately make this determination going forward. 

Noting this issue, we are undertaking work for the Congress. Specifically, 

we have several ongoing reviews assessing, among other things, MMS’s 

ability to quantify and compare administrative costs and revenues of the 

RIK and royalties in value programs; the effectiveness of the systems used 

to collect, account for, and disburse royalties; and the accuracy of royalty 

revenue collection, including evaluating whether the value of RIK 

payments equal or exceed the value of royalties that would have been 

received in value for oil and gas as required by statute. 
Page 9 GAO-07-682T 

In a 2006 report on geothermal royalties, we found that MMS had 

erroneous and missing historical geothermal electricity revenue data and 

did not collect sufficient data from royalty payors to accurately asses 

whether MMS was collecting the amount of royalties required by statute.8

Specifically, about 40 percent of the royalty revenue data for royalty 

payors was either missing or erroneous in the projects we reviewed. In 

addition, MMS did not have sufficient historical gross revenue data for 

geothermal electricity sales. 

MMS is charged with collecting and distributing royalties collected from 

the development of geothermal resources used to generate electricity. The 

Energy Policy Act of 2005 included provisions that significantly changed 

how geothermal royalties are calculated but also instructed the Secretary 

of the Interior to seek to maintain the same level of royalties over the next 

ten years that would have been collected prior to the Act’s passage. We 

found that to meet the statutory requirements, MMS will need to calculate 

the percentage of gross sales revenues that lessees will pay in future 

royalties from electricity sales and compare this to what lessees would 

have paid prior to the Act. In order to compare royalties collected under 

the provisions of the Act with what would have been collected under the 

old system would require historical data on gross revenues from 

geothermal electricity sales as well as accurate royalty data on those sales. 

As a result of the insufficient gross revenue data and missing or erroneous 

royalty revenue data, MMS is unable to determine if it is collecting the 

amount of royalties on geothermal electricity production as required in 

statute. In our report we recommended that the Secretary of the Interior 

direct MMS to correct these deficiencies and the agency agreed with our 

findings and recommendations. We will continue to monitor the agency’s 

efforts to address these shortcomings. 

As seen by all the attention royalties management has received in the 

Congress and the media, Interior’s performance in managing this effort is a 

cause for concern. Billions of dollars have been lost already and 

potentially billions more are at risk. In a time of dire long-term national 

fiscal challenges it is urgent that this problem be fixed and the confidence 

of the American public that the sale of its national resources is generating 

 8

GAO, Renewable Energy: Increased Geothermal Development Will Depend on 

Overcoming Many Challenges, GAO-06-629 (Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2006), 34-38. 

MMS Does Not 

Collect the Data 

Necessary to Assess 

Whether Geothermal 

Royalties Remain 

Constant as Required 

by Law 

Conclusions 
Page 10 GAO-07-682T 

a fair return be restored. Our work on this issue is continuing on multiple 

levels, including comparing the value of royalties taken in kind to the value 

of royalties taken as cash, reviewing the diligence of resource 

development, and evaluating the accuracy of the agency’s cost, revenue, 

and production data. 

We look forward to this continued work, and to helping this committee 

and the Congress as a whole exercise oversight of this important issue. Mr. 

Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to 

respond to any questions that you or other members of the Committee 

may have at this time. 

For further information about this testimony, please contact me, Mark 

Gaffigan, at 202-512-3841 or gaffiganm@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the 

last page of this statement. Contributors to this testimony include Frank 

Rusco, Assistant Director; Robert Baney; Ron Belak; Philip Farah; Doreen 

Feldman; Glenn Fischer; Dan Haas; Chase Huntley; Dawn Shorey; Barbara 

Timmerman; Maria Vargas; and Jacqueline Wade. 

GAO Contact and 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
Page 11 GAO-07-682T 

Oil and Gas Royalties: Royalty Relief Will Likely Cost the Government 

Billions, but the Final Costs Have Yet to Be Determined, GAO-07-369T 

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 18, 2007). 

Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress, GAO-07-235R 

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 17, 2006). 

Department of Interior: Royalty-in-Kind Oil and Gas Preferences, 

B-307767 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 2006). 

Royalty Revenues: Total Revenues Have Not Increased at the Same Pace 

as Rising Natural Gas Prices due to Decreasing Production Sold, 

GAO-06-786BR (Washington, D.C.: June 21, 2006). 

Renewable Energy: Increased Geothermal Development Will Depend on 

Overcoming Many Challenges, GAO-06-629 (Washington, D.C.: May 24, 

2006). 

Mineral Revenues: Cost and Revenue Information Needed to Compare 

Different Approaches for Collecting Federal Oil and Gas Royalties, 

GAO-04-448 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 16, 2004). 

Mineral Revenues: A More Systematic Evaluation of the Royalty-in-Kind 

Pilots is Needed, GAO-03-296 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 9, 2003). 

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