Federal Lands and Fossil Fuels: Maximizing Social Welfare in Federal Energy Leasing

摘要

Interior, as the steward of public lands, should structure its leasing programs to provide maximum net benefits to the public, including by accounting for climate change costs. Adjusting royalty rates to account for the externality costs of production would ensure that any leasing provides net benefits to the public-not just short-term gains for private companies. And modernizing bidding to account for option value and to increase competition for leases would better effectuate Interior's duty to earn fair market value for the use and development of federal lands and resources. By increasing revenue to states and the federal government while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the tools and reforms suggested in this Article can serve as effective policy levers in the absence of comprehensive climate change legislation.