S. 1219 would require the Secretary of the Interior to convey, without consideration, roughly 230 acres of land and associated minerals near Lake Bistineau in northwest Louisiana. Using information from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the oil and gas industry, the state of Louisiana, and other interested parties, CBO estimates that enacting the bill would reduce offsetting receipts, which are treated as reductions in direct spending, by about $1 million over the 2019-2028 period.
Because enacting S. 1219 would affect direct spending, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 1219 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits by more than $5 billion in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2029.
S. 1219 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
Background
The affected lands were omitted from a federal land survey in 1842. The state of Louisiana subsequently deeded those lands to the Bossier Levee District, which transferred them to private individuals. Following a resurvey of the area published in 1969, BLM determined that the lands, which were then held privately, fell under federal jurisdiction. In recent years, BLM and private titleholders have each claimed ownership
of the affected lands and the subsurface mineral estate; however, the private titleholders are not currently pursuing any remedy other than legislation similar to S. 1219.
