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Alaska receives $4.5 million from U.S. Department of Interior
Alaska received more than $4.5 million as its share of federal minerals revenue despite a four-month court-ordered computer network shutdown. The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service said Aug. 1 that it distributed more than $318 million to 32 states during the first six months of 2002.
MMS said the money represents the states’ cumulative share of revenues collected for mineral production on federal lands within state borders and from federal offshore oil and gas tracts adjacent to their shores.
“MMS continued to make estimated payments to the states in spite of the computer shutdown…” at the Department of Interior in response to a federal court order which began Dec. 7 and was not lifted at MMS until late March, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said in a statement. MMS “is now working to reconcile these estimates with a several-month backlog of payment and production records,” she said.
Norton said this year’s half-way numbers are less than the record $656 million halfway figure, but close to the $362 for the first half of 2000.
“The numbers largely reflect a recent decline in prices of crude oil and natural gas,” she said.
Alaska gets 90%; other states get 50% MMS collects, accounts for, audits and disburses revenues from mineral leases on federal and Indian lands and makes payments to states monthly as revenues are collected.
States receive a share of mineral revenues from federal lands within the state’s boundaries, typically 50 percent to the state, 40 percent to the Reclamation Fund for water projects and 10 percent to the U.S. Treasury.
Alaska, however, gets a 90 percent share according to terms of the Alaska Statehood Act. States with federal offshore tracts adjacent to seaward boundaries receive 27 percent of those mineral royalties as well.
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