The Truth About Leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf

Institute for Energy Research

Capitol Hill’s opponents of domestic energy production took to the stage yesterday to decry “Big Oil” again, not for its profits, but for “stockpiling” energy leases instead of producing them. In reality, it’s the government that is stockpiling leases.

This group of politicians stated that oil companies hold the rights to millions of acres of federal leases that are not currently producing energy. This is certainly true, but not because of the sinister reasons they would have you believe. The following may help provide the insights the Members of Congress neglected to provide yesterday.