S. 535 would prohibit the Department of the Interior from requiring a permit to drill under an oil or gas lease if the federal government does not own or lease the surface land and owns less than 50 percent of the minerals. That prohibition would not apply to land owned by Indian tribes.
Fees from drilling permits are recorded in the budget as offsetting receipts (or reductions in direct spending) and are available to be spent without further appropriation. The amounts collected are deposited into the Bureau of Land Management’s Permit Processing Improvement Fund and used by that agency to cover the costs of processing applications. Using information from the agency, CBO estimates that the forgone collections would total $700,000 a year, on average. The agency typically spends those amounts within four years. Based on that lag between collections and spending, CBO estimates that enacting the bill would increase net direct spending by $1 million over the 2023-2033 period.
