Generally, federal lands may not be taxed by state or local governments unless the governments are authorized to do so by Congress. Because local governments often are financed by property or sales taxes, this inability to tax the property values or products derived from the federal lands may affect local tax bases, sometimes significantly. If the federal government controls a significant share of a county's property, then the revenue-raising capacity of that county may be compromised. Instead of authorizing taxation, Congress usually has chosen to create various payment programs designed to compensate for lost tax revenue. These programs take various forms. Many pertain to the lands of a particular agency (e.g., the National Forest System [NFS] or the National Wildlife Refuge System [NWRS]). The most wide-ranging payment program is called Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT). It is administered by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and affects most acreage under federal ownership. Eligible lands consist of those in the National Park System (NPS), NFS, or Bureau of Land Management (BLM); certain lands in the NWRS if they are withdrawn from the public domain; lands dedicated to the use of federal water resources development projects; dredge disposal areas under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; lands located in the vicinity of Purgatory River Canyon and Piñon Canyon, Colorado, that were acquired after December 31, 1981, to expand the Fort Carson military reservation; lands on which are located semi-active or inactive Army installations used for mobilization and for reserve component training; and certain lands acquired by DOI or the Department of Agriculture under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act ( P.L. 105-263 ). However, most military lands, lands under the Department of Energy (which have their own smaller payment program), lands of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and lands of the Department of Homeland Security are not eligible for payments under PILT. In FY2016, the PILT program covered 606.9 million acres, or about 94% of all federal land. The Payments in Lieu of Taxes Act of 1976 ( P.L. 94-565 , as amended; 31 U.S.C. §§6901-6907) was passed at a time when U.S. policy was shifting from one of disposal of federal lands to one of retention. The policy meant the retained lands would no longer be expected to enter the local tax base at some later date. Because of that shift, Congress agreed with recommendations of a federal commission that if these federal lands were never to become part of the local tax base, some compensation should be offered to local governments (generally counties) to make up for the presence of nontaxable land within their jurisdictions. Moreover, there was a long-standing concern that some federal lands produced large revenues for local governments, whereas other federal lands produced little or none. Many Members, especially those from western states with a high percentage of federal lands, felt the imbalance needed to be addressed. The resulting law authorizes federal PILT payments to local governments. The payments may be used for any governmental purpose. In addition to the overall structure of the program, specific issues that have been included are payments for Indian or other categories of lands, and tax equivalency, especially for eligible urban lands. Critics of PILT cite examples of what they view as its idiosyncrasies: A few counties that receive very large payments from other federal revenue-sharing programs (because of valuable timber, mining, recreation, and other land uses) also are authorized to receive a minimum payment ($0.37 per acre) from PILT. Although there is no distinction between acquired and public domain lands for other categories of eligible lands, acquired lands of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are not eligible for PILT. This provision works to the detriment of many counties in the East and Midwest, where nearly all FWS lands are acquired lands. Payments under the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program require an offset in the following year's PILT payment for certain lands under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service (FS). However, if the eligible lands are under the jurisdiction of the BLM, there is no reduction in the next year's PILT payment. Certain BLM lands (called the Oregon and California Grant Lands) receive payments that do not require an offset in the following year's PILT payment. Some of the "units of general local government" (counties) that receive large payments have other substantial sources of revenue, and some of the counties that receive small payments are relatively poor. In some counties the PILT payment greatly exceeds the amount the county would receive if the land were taxed at fair market value, whereas in others it is much less. Given such issues, and the complexity of federal land management policies, consensus on substantive change in the PILT law has been elusive. Many of the broader issues of federal compensation to counties that were addressed when PILT was created have reemerged over the years. One such issue is the appropriate payment level, which is complicated by erosion of the payments' purchasing power due to inflation. Until about 1994, the full amount authorized under the law's formula generally had been appropriated, with a few exceptions such as sequestration under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (Title II of P.L. 99-177 ). For many of PILT's first 15 years, counties held that payments effectively were declining because of inflation. A 1994 amendment ( P.L. 103-397 ) was focused on increasing the total payments, building in inflation protection, and making certain additional categories of land eligible. The authorized payment level continued to be subject to annual appropriations. Figure 1 shows a major increase in both the actual and the inflation-adjusted dollars appropriated for PILT from FY1993 to FY2017. The increase in the authorization from the 1990s to the 2000s was not accompanied by a commensurate increase in appropriations. (See Figure 2 .) The growing discrepancy between appropriations and the rising authorization levels led to even greater levels of frustration among many local governments and prompted intense interest among some Members in increasing appropriations. From the first PILT payment in FY1977 to FY2007, payments were provided through annual appropriations. Starting with the FY2008 payment, however, Congress enacted a series of changes to PILT payment funding, including approval of mandatory spending for the payments (see Table 1 ). The 110 th Congress enacted several changes in PILT funding. First, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009 ( P.L. 110-329 ), provided funding at the FY2008 level ($228.9 million) through March 6, 2009. This figure would have constituted roughly 61% of the figure estimated for full payment of the FY2009 authorized level. Subsequently, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 provided for mandatory spending of the full authorized level for five years—FY2008-FY2012. (See Figure 2 .) Next, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21 st Century Act ( P.L. 112-141 , §100111) extended mandatory spending for PILT to FY2013, without making any other changes to the law. Under the Budget Control Act ( P.L. 112-25 ), PILT was categorized as a nonexempt, nondefense mandatory spending program. As such, it was subject to a 5.1% sequestration of the payments scheduled for FY2013, or $21.5 million from an authorized payment of $421.7 million. For the FY2014 appropriations cycle, Congress faced two basic choices for FY2104 funding: continue the program through an appropriations act, which is constrained by procedural and statutory limits on discretionary spending; or provide funding through some measure other than an appropriations act, which would be treated as mandatory spending. With this choice, funding would be subject to certain budget rules that generally require such spending to be offset. In either case, failure to find an offset would lead to certain procedural hurdles, such as points of order, although Congress sometimes sets aside or waives such points of order. The option for funding through an appropriations act was rejected when PILT funding was not included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 ( P.L. 113-76 ), although the Appropriations Committee members expressed support for the program in general. Instead, funding for the program was included in the Agricultural Act of 2014 ( P.L. 113-79 , §12312; H.Rept. 113-333 ; also called the 2014 farm bill), which extended mandatory spending for one year. The bill was a net reduction in mandatory spending and therefore offset the increase due to PILT payments. The PILT provision provided county governments with the full formula amount in summer 2014. The FY2015 payment was paid in June 2015. The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 ( P.L. 113-235 , §11), provided $372 million in discretionary spending. The Carl Levin and Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA; P.L. 113-291 ) included a provision (§3096) for $70 million in mandatory spending for PILT. Of this amount, $33 million was made available in FY2015; the remaining $37 million was to be made available after the start of FY2016 on October 1, 2015, leaving some doubt as to whether the amount should be considered a late payment for FY2015 or an early payment for FY2016. The Continuing Appropriations Act of 2016 ( P.L. 114-53 ) included a provision (§138) clarifying that the October payment was to be considered a supplement for the FY2015 payment. Through sequestration, the additional $37 million was reduced by 6.8%, to $34.5 million.