Our bill would set a uniform federal royalty at 18.75 percent, applied to new leases. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that royalty would raise $200 million in federal revenue over the next 10 years as it is phased in, with an equivalent amount going to the states where the oil or gas is being extracted.

And it isn’t just the royalty rate that needs an update. The minimum bid for oil and gas companies that want to lease federal land for exploration and extraction has not increased in over 30 years. Today, they can lease federal land for a minimum of just $2 per acre — cheaper than a cup of coffee in many places. Over the past four years, over one million acres have been leased at this minimum rate, meaning that nearly 20 percent of the 5.4 million acres leased since 2016 has produced only $2 million in rental revenue to taxpayers.