Comment Submitted in Opposition to Direct Final Rule
Bureau of Land Management Direct Final Rule — Revisions to Regulations Regarding Oil and Gas Leasing; Fees, Rentals, and Royalties
thomas barrett
Comment Submitted in Opposition to Direct Final Rule
Bureau of Land Management Direct Final Rule — Revisions to Regulations Regarding Oil and Gas Leasing; Fees, Rentals, and Royalties
thomas barrett
2026
2026
Comment Submitted in Opposition to Direct Final Rule
Subject: Bureau of Land Management Direct Final Rule — Revisions to Regulations Regarding Oil and Gas Leasing; Fees, Rentals, and Royalties
Docket No.: BLM-2025-0138
RIN: 1004-AF41
Federal Register Document: 2026-08280
Comment Deadline: May 29, 2026
Purpose of Submission: This comment is respectfully submitted in opposition to the direct final rule and requests that the Bureau of Land Management withdraw the rule or issue a new final rule following full consideration of significant adverse comments.
To: The Bureau of Land Management
I am submitting this comment as a citizen and as a significant adverse comment regarding the direct final rule titled Revisions to Regulations Regarding Oil and Gas Leasing; Fees, Rentals, and Royalties, Docket No. BLM-2025-0138, RIN 1004-AF41.
I oppose allowing this rule to take effect automatically through the direct final rule process for the reasons explained below.
BLM states that this rule will become effective on June 29, 2026, unless significant adverse comments are received by May 29, 2026. If significant adverse comments are received, BLM states that it will publish a notice before the effective date either withdrawing the rule or issuing a new final rule that responds to those comments. The rule should not proceed automatically because it raises serious questions about public ownership, private usage rights, royalty adequacy, depletion of finite resources, water use, damage to public lands, cleanup liability, orphaned wells, environmental review, expanded Alaska leasing, and the government’s duty to manage these resources responsibly over time.
This rule is more than a technical adjustment to royalty regulations. It speaks to how the federal government handles the leasing of finite public resources and what the public receives in return.
These resources belong to the public, while private operators receive limited rights to develop and sell them.
A lease does not transfer ownership, and royalties are the public’s compensation for allowing a private party to remove and profit from a public resource.
BLM should not reduce the public’s return from extraction without first explaining how that decision protects the public owner, future generations, the land itself, and the broader public interest.
1. Usage rights are not ownership rights
When BLM leases public land for oil and gas development, it does not transfer title to the land. But it does grant something highly valuable: the right to enter public land, extract a finite public resource, convert that resource into a private commodity, and sell it into commercial markets.
Those rights can have effects that last far beyond the term of the lease.
Once oil or gas is removed, it cannot be restored. Once land is disturbed, water systems affected, air emissions created, roads built, habitat fragmented, noise introduced, lights installed, or infrastructure placed on the land, the public estate is changed.
The lease itself may be temporary, but the effects on the land, water, habitat, and surrounding area can last much longer.
That is why BLM should not treat royalty rates as a narrow accounting matter. Royalty rates are part of the public’s compensation for allowing private use and depletion of public assets.
The direct final rule revises royalty regulations after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored the Mineral Leasing Act royalty provision to “not less than 12.5 percent.” BLM’s April 2026 notice identifies the rule as a direct final rule and states that it revises regulations concerning royalty on production from federal oil and gas leases.
That change is significant because it increases the operator’s share of the value created from public resources and reduces the public’s share of the return from extraction.
BLM’s 2024 onshore oil and gas rule had raised royalty rates for new oil and gas leases from 12.5% to 16.67%. A lower royalty rate gives the operator a larger share of the value created from public resources. It reduces the public’s share of the return from extraction.
Even if Congress has authorized a minimum royalty of 12.5 percent, BLM still has a responsibility to explain whether that rate is adequate as a matter of stewardship.
Even if Congress has set a legal minimum, BLM should still explain why that rate serves the public interest. The issue is not just what royalty is allowed, but whether the public is being fairly compensated when a finite public resource is removed and sold.
BLM’s direct final rule does not adequately answer that question.
2. BLM’s role is stewardship, not merely revenue collection
The federal government should not analyze this rule as though the operator is the primary party affected.
The public owns the resource. The operator receives a limited usage right. BLM’s role is to manage that public resource as a steward, not merely to facilitate extraction or collect revenue after the fact.
That broader stewardship role should guide BLM’s analysis of this rule.
A royalty is not proof that the public interest has been protected. A royalty is only one form of compensation for allowing a private party to remove a public asset from the public estate. If the royalty is too low, if the environmental costs are not fully considered, if the resource can be sold into commercial markets without guaranteed public use, if cleanup liabilities are not fully secured, or if future generations receive no protected benefit, then the transaction may produce revenue while still failing as stewardship.
BLM should therefore explain how this rule protects the public owner, not simply how it aligns with a statutory minimum royalty rate.
Federal oil and gas royalties, rentals, fees, and bonus bids are public revenue. But public revenue is not automatically public stewardship. Revenue can be distributed, absorbed into budgets, or spent for other purposes. It does not necessarily restore depleted resources, repair damaged lands, protect water, plug orphaned wells, reduce public debt, or reserve value for future generations.
This is important because oil and gas royalty revenue is not a dedicated trust for future generations, nor does it appear to be directed specifically toward reducing the national debt. The federal share may flow into the Treasury, states may receive statutory shares, and some funds may receive revenue depending on the statutory source. But none of that, by itself, shows that the public has been fully compensated for what is taken.
BLM should answer:
It should not be enough to say that a lower royalty rate may encourage production or align with statutory changes. Increased production may also mean faster depletion. Lower costs for operators may also mean reduced public return. More leasing may also mean greater long-term disturbance to lands, waters, habitats, and communities.
Production is not automatically stewardship. Revenue is not automatically stewardship. Stewardship requires showing that the public estate is protected over time.
3. The Constitution names posterity; BLM’s rule does not
The Constitution’s Preamble states that one purpose of the Constitution is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
In plain terms, “posterity” means the generations that come after us.
That reference is relevant here because public resources are not owned only by the present generation.
These public resources are not just for the people making decisions today. They are assets we inherited, and the government should consider whether current decisions preserve real choices for the people who come after us.
BLM’s rule does not adequately address that responsibility.
It does not explain how lowering the public’s return from extraction protects future generations. It does not explain how cheaper extraction preserves the public estate. It does not explain whether future citizens will have comparable access to the resources being leased today. It does not explain whether future citizens will inherit restored land or damaged industrial remains.
If the government permits a private party to remove a finite public resource, BLM should be required to answer:
Those questions should not be optional. They go to the heart of stewardship.
4. Production is also depletion
The rule discusses production and royalties. But production is only one side of the transaction.
From the operator’s side, oil and gas production is output.
From the public’s side, it is depletion.
A barrel of oil or unit of gas produced from federal land is not only a product entering the market. It is also a public resource leaving the public estate forever.
BLM should not evaluate the rule only by looking at operator costs, statutory minimums, and revenue distribution. It should also evaluate what is lost, what is transferred, what is damaged, what is left behind, and what future citizens no longer have.
A true stewardship analysis would ask:
The current rule does not sufficiently answer these questions.
5. Public resources should not become private commodities without a full stewardship accounting
Many citizens hear terms such as public land, federal minerals, or national petroleum reserve and assume those resources are being preserved for long-term national use.
But federal leasing often works differently.
A private party may receive the right to extract the resource and sell it into commercial markets. The public receives royalty revenue, but the public does not necessarily retain the resource for future domestic use.
BLM should clearly explain this distinction.
Citizens deserve to know whether public resources are being:
If the resource is not being reserved for future Americans, BLM should not allow the public to misunderstand the transaction.
A public resource should not become a private commodity unless the government first shows that:
6. Alaska shows why this rule is not abstract
This royalty rule is being issued while Interior is also moving to expand oil and gas access across major Alaska public lands. Alaska shows why this rule should not be treated as a narrow technical correction.
On January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14153, Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential, directed federal agencies to prioritize and expedite development of Alaska’s natural resources. The order describes Alaska as having abundant energy, mineral, timber, and seafood resources and directs policy toward unlocking those resources.
That executive direction is now showing up in concrete leasing action.
In 2026, BLM moved forward with a National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska lease sale involving more than 600 tracts and approximately 5.5 million acres. BLM reported that it offered 625 tracts, received bids from 11 companies on 187 tracts, and received bids covering 1,334,967 acres, with high bids totaling more than $163 million.
That context matters because Alaska contains some of the country’s most significant public land, ecological, subsistence, wildlife, water, and energy resources. These lands are not merely commercial inputs. They are part of the public estate.
When BLM lowers royalty protections at the same time Interior expands access to Alaska public lands, the public faces a compounded risk:
The Alaska example shows why BLM should not analyze this rule as a standalone royalty adjustment.
A royalty reduction may appear technical on paper. But when paired with expanded leasing in Alaska, it becomes part of a larger policy direction: opening more public resources to private extraction while reducing the public’s share of the value and potentially compressing the review process.
That is precisely why this rule should not proceed automatically as a direct final rule.
Before this rule takes effect, BLM should explain how its lower royalty framework interacts with expanded Alaska leasing, including:
Alaska makes the stewardship issue visible.
The public is not merely being asked to accept a different royalty percentage. The public is being asked to accept a broader shift in how federal lands are managed: more access for extraction, lower compensation for the public owner, faster review for development, and potentially greater cleanup burden after operators leave.
That combination requires full public review, not automatic effectiveness through a direct final rule.
7. Public land use is also a public resource
BLM should not treat public land only as a platform for oil, gas, mining, roads, pads, pipelines, and industrial equipment.
Public land has value because citizens can use it. People go to BLM land for quiet, open space, wildlife, dark skies, camping, hunting, fishing, hiking, solitude, and direct contact with nature. Those uses may not appear on a royalty statement, but they are real public benefits.
Oil and gas development can impair those benefits even when the land remains legally public.
A drilling or mining site may bring roads, pads, waste, fuel storage, heavy machinery, lights, dust, noise, truck traffic, fencing, security areas, visual disturbance, and industrial activity. At night, engine noise, generators, flaring, lights, and machinery can replace the quiet that many citizens seek on public land. The result is that land may remain public in name while becoming industrial in practice.
That matters because public access is not only a matter of legal title. It is also a matter of practical use.
If citizens can no longer experience quiet, habitat, dark skies, open land, and natural conditions because the area is dominated by machinery and extraction activity, then a public value has been lost. That loss should be part of BLM’s stewardship analysis.
BLM should therefore explain how this rule accounts for:
This is especially important where lands were previously protected because their public value was not limited to extractable resources. Protection is not meaningful if the practical effect of policy is to convert protected landscapes into extraction zones without full accounting for what the public loses.
A royalty payment does not compensate citizens for every loss. It does not restore quiet. It does not replace a dark night sky. It does not remove the damage of a scarred landscape. It does not guarantee that a site will return to the condition that made the land worth protecting.
BLM should not treat these losses as secondary or incidental. They are part of the public estate.
8. Water and related resources require separate stewardship analysis
An oil and gas lease should not be treated as a general license to use all resources associated with the land.
A federal oil and gas lease may provide rights related to the leased oil and gas resource and the surface use reasonably necessary for development. But it should not be understood as a blanket right to use water, timber, gravel, air capacity, habitat, or other public resources without separate analysis and authorization.
This is especially important for water.
Oil and gas development may require water for drilling, hydraulic fracturing, dust control, road construction, camps, processing, and reclamation. It may also generate produced water that must be handled, treated, reused, injected, discharged, or disposed of. Each of these activities can affect public resources beyond the oil and gas itself.
BLM should therefore explain:
Water is not merely an operational input. It is itself a public and ecological resource. In many places, it is scarce, contested, and essential to future generations.
A royalty on oil and gas is not full compensation if extraction also consumes water, burdens aquifers, creates produced-water waste, fragments habitat, and leaves future citizens with fewer public options.
9. Reclamation, orphaned wells, and who pays after extraction ends
BLM should not evaluate this rule only at the moment of leasing, drilling, or production. It must evaluate the full lifecycle of extraction, including what happens after the operator leaves.
Oil and gas development does not end when production stops. Wells must be plugged. Pads, tanks, pipes, roads, fencing, debris, and equipment must be removed. Contaminated soil may need to be remediated. Produced-water damage may need to be addressed. Vegetation, drainage, habitat, and public access must be restored. In some places, the scars remain long after the drilling equipment moves to the next site.
This concern is supported by GAO’s own findings about BLM’s reclamation liabilities and tracking problems.
In 2018, GAO found that BLM’s actual costs and potential liabilities for reclaiming oil and gas wells had likely increased from fiscal years 2010 through 2017. GAO also found that the full extent of those costs and liabilities could not be determined because BLM did not systematically track the necessary data. GAO recommended that BLM improve how it tracks reclamation costs and potential liabilities.
In 2019, GAO further explained that wells may become orphaned when the operator’s bond held by BLM is not sufficient to cover reclamation costs. GAO described BLM’s then-existing minimum bonds as $10,000 for all wells on an individual lease, $25,000 for all wells in a state, and $150,000 for all wells nationwide.
If the bond is insufficient, and the operator leaves, becomes insolvent, transfers the lease, or abandons the site, then the public may be left with the cleanup burden. The public may receive royalties during production but inherit the damaged land after production ends.
That is not stewardship.
BLM’s 2024 reforms also show that this was a known problem. BLM increased the minimum individual lease bond to $150,000, increased the minimum statewide bond to $500,000, and eliminated new nationwide and unit bonds. BLM’s bonding fact sheet states that these changes were intended to ensure reclamation costs reside primarily with oil and gas lessees, operating rights owners, and operators rather than the American taxpayer.
This history raises an important question for the present rule:
Why should BLM lower the public’s royalty position without first proving that reclamation and abandonment liabilities are fully secured?
Royalty revenue is not the same as reclamation funding. A royalty may be distributed to the Treasury, states, or other funds. It does not necessarily plug an orphaned well. It does not necessarily remove roads, pads, tanks, fencing, debris, and rusting equipment. It does not necessarily restore quiet, dark skies, habitat, soil, water, or public access.
GAO’s findings show that BLM should not assume cleanup will happen or that bonds will always be enough. BLM should prove it.
Before this rule becomes effective, BLM should answer:
Public stewardship does not end when the lease is signed. It does not end when production begins. It does not end when royalties are collected.
Stewardship ends only when the land is restored, the public is made whole, and future citizens are not left with the bill.
10. The SPEED Act would narrow the safeguards that make stewardship enforceable
The Alaska example shows why this rule matters in practice. The SPEED Act shows why the review safeguards around that extraction may also be weakened.
This rule cannot be evaluated in isolation.
BLM is reducing the public’s royalty position at the leasing stage while Congress is considering changes that would accelerate, narrow, and restrict environmental review at the permitting stage.
The SPEED Act, H.R. 4776, proposes significant changes to NEPA. The uploaded SPEED Act material states that the bill would narrow the definition of “major federal action,” limit review to direct and immediate effects proximately caused by a project, bar review of cumulative, speculative, or geographically separate impacts, create permit certainty, restrict litigation windows to 150 days, limit plaintiffs to those who previously submitted relevant comments, and allow projects to avoid NEPA review if they have passed equivalent federal, state, or tribal environmental review.
A federal oil and gas project is controlled by more than one safeguard.
There is a financial safeguard at the leasing stage, where the public receives royalties for private use of public resources.
There is an environmental-review safeguard at the permitting stage, where agencies examine the public consequences of development before it proceeds.
There is also a public-participation safeguard, where citizens, communities, tribes, local governments, and other affected parties can comment, challenge, and force agencies to address risks before the resource is committed.
This rule affects the first safeguard. The SPEED Act affects the second and third.
The uploaded SPEED Act material also states that the bill heavily affects drilling and mining by shrinking cumulative-impact review, speeding critical-mineral mining, reducing litigation leverage, and insulating permits from later reversal.
Those changes matter because oil and gas extraction is rarely limited to one direct effect on one parcel of land.
Extraction depends on a chain of public-resource uses and public consequences:
If environmental review is narrowed to only the most immediate, direct physical effects, then the larger stewardship question may disappear from formal review.
BLM may say this rule concerns only royalties. But royalty policy affects the economics of extraction. Lower royalties can make extraction more attractive. If the SPEED Act also makes permitting faster, narrower, and harder to challenge, then public resources may move from public ownership into private extraction with less public compensation and less public scrutiny.
The lease is the first control point.
The permit is the second control point.
Judicial review is the third control point.
Public comment is the fourth control point.
If the government lowers the royalty safeguard while narrowing the review, challenge, and remedy safeguards, then the public loses protection at multiple points in the same extraction chain.
This is especially important for water, land damage, noise, waste, and reclamation. These harms often appear cumulatively, over time, across a landscape, and after operators move from one site to another. If review is limited to direct, immediate, proximately caused effects, then regional aquifer stress, cumulative withdrawals, produced-water disposal, road networks, abandoned infrastructure, noise corridors, habitat fragmentation, and long-term reclamation failure may receive less scrutiny.
The issue is not whether legal protections remain as words in the law. The issue is whether the public still has a meaningful process to identify, test, challenge, and enforce those protections before extraction begins.
BLM should therefore answer the following before this rule becomes effective:
Posterity cannot comment in this docket. Future citizens cannot challenge the permits issued today. They cannot object to the royalty rate set today. They cannot recover oil, gas, clean water, habitat, quiet, dark skies, or public land value once it has been depleted, degraded, industrialized, or locked into long-term private use.
That is why BLM must apply a higher stewardship standard before allowing this rule to take effect.
11. Lower royalties plus narrowed review converts stewardship into extraction acceleration
The public should not lose at multiple points in the same transaction.
At the front end, the royalty rate determines what the public receives for private use of a public resource.
At the permitting stage, environmental review determines whether the public understands the consequences of that use before development proceeds.
At the litigation stage, citizens and affected communities may challenge agency decisions that fail to consider required impacts.
At the remedy stage, courts may determine whether a flawed approval should be paused, corrected, or allowed to continue.
The SPEED Act is relevant because it affects these later safeguards. If review is narrowed, litigation windows are shortened, who may sue is restricted, and remedies are limited, then citizens may have less ability to force a full accounting of public harm.
That makes the royalty decision more important, not less.
BLM should not lower the public’s compensation at the same time the broader permitting system is being redesigned to move projects faster with narrower review and fewer challenge points.
The result may be:
BLM should not treat this royalty rule as isolated from those changes.
The public resource is the same. The extraction chain is the same. The affected communities are the same. The future generations who inherit the consequences are the same.
If the government lowers the price of access while narrowing the review of consequences, then the policy direction is not stewardship. It is acceleration.
That is exactly why this rule should not proceed automatically as a direct final rule.
12. Stewardship is a public duty across generations
This rule raises a larger issue that BLM has not adequately addressed: the federal government’s stewardship responsibility.
Stewardship is not the same as ownership.
Ownership can be exercised for present benefit. Stewardship carries a duty to preserve value, access, and choice for others, including those who cannot speak in the present process.
That distinction matters because BLM is not managing private inventory. It is managing public resources held across time.
Oil, gas, minerals, water, clean air, habitat, quiet, darkness, public land access, rights-of-way, recreation, and ecological capacity are not isolated commodities. They are part of the public estate. Some are finite. Some can be degraded. Some can be over-allocated. Some can be locked into private use for decades. Some can be ruined in experience even if public title remains unchanged.
Once those public assets are depleted, damaged, industrialized, or encumbered, future citizens inherit fewer choices.
That is why the Constitution’s reference to “Posterity” is not ornamental language. It is a governance standard. The Preamble does not say government exists only to serve the present generation. It says the Constitution was established in part to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
BLM’s rule does not explain where posterity appears in the analysis.
Future generations cannot file comments in this docket. They cannot object to today’s royalty rate. They cannot challenge today’s lease terms. They cannot ask that oil and gas be left in the ground for later need. They cannot recover a depleted reserve, restore a damaged watershed, reopen a fragmented habitat corridor, silence an industrialized landscape, or reclaim public options once they have been transferred into private commercial use.
The question is not only whether extraction is lawful. The question is whether the government has shown that present extraction does not unfairly consume the inheritance of future citizens.
BLM should therefore treat stewardship as a required public-interest test before allowing this rule to take effect. That test should include at least the following questions:
This is especially important when the royalty rule is viewed together with expanded Alaska leasing, SPEED Act permitting acceleration, and GAO’s findings on reclamation liability.
If more public land is opened, the public royalty return is lowered, environmental review is narrowed, and cleanup liability is not fully secured, then stewardship is weakened at four points at once:
That combination does not merely affect today’s operators and today’s Treasury receipts. It affects the inheritance left to future citizens.
BLM should not allow finite public resources to move more quickly from public ownership into private extraction without first showing that the public estate is being preserved, not merely monetized.
A stewardship framework would not prohibit all use. It would require that use be justified, measured, compensated, bounded, reviewed, and fully secured. It would require BLM to show that extraction serves the public interest over time, not merely the production needs of the present market.
For that reason, BLM should withdraw this direct final rule or issue a new final rule that directly addresses stewardship, intergenerational responsibility, cumulative depletion, water use, public-land damage, reclamation liability, and the constitutional obligation to secure the blessings of liberty for posterity.
13. BLM must answer these questions before the rule takes effect
Before this rule becomes effective, BLM should answer the following questions:
These questions are central to the public-interest analysis. They should be answered before the rule takes effect.
Conclusion and Requested Action
BLM should withdraw this direct final rule or issue a new final rule that fully responds to these concerns.
This is not just an accounting change. It affects what the public receives when private parties extract public resources. It is also happening while Interior expands oil and gas access across major Alaska lands and while Congress considers changes that could speed permitting, narrow review, shorten litigation windows, and limit remedies for energy and mining projects.
The government should not reduce the public’s compensation at the same time it expands access to public lands and reduces the public’s review protections.
The government is not only managing current production. It is making decisions about resources that people in the future will have to live with—or do without. Public oil, gas, minerals, water, air, habitat, recreation, and access are not just entries on a balance sheet.
The Constitution names that obligation directly through its commitment to posterity. BLM’s rule does not show how that obligation is being honored.
GAO has already warned that BLM has faced increasing reclamation liabilities and has not always had the data needed to track potential cleanup costs. BLM should not lower the public’s return from extraction without first proving that cleanup, reclamation, orphaned-well, and abandonment risks are fully secured. The public should not receive a smaller royalty today and inherit a cleanup bill tomorrow.
A private operator may receive a lease, but that lease is only a usage right. It does not erase the public’s ownership interest. It does not erase the government’s stewardship duty. It does not justify converting finite public resources into private commodities without a full accounting of what the public receives, what future generations lose, and whether the transaction serves the public interest over time.
Public land should not remain public only on a map while becoming industrial in experience. If drilling, mining, roads, noise, waste, lights, and heavy machinery displace the public’s ability to experience nature, then the public has lost a real resource even if legal title never changed.
BLM should not allow finite public resources to move more quickly from public ownership into private extraction with less public compensation, less public scrutiny, and unresolved cleanup risk.
For these reasons, I respectfully ask BLM to withdraw this direct final rule or issue a new final rule that fully addresses the concerns raised here, including public return, stewardship, Alaska leasing, water use, land disturbance, environmental review, reclamation liability, and the government’s responsibility to future generations.
Respectfully submitted,
Thom Barrett
Founder, The Citizens League
The Quiet Collapse / Operation Citizen
Website: https://quietcollapse.net
Substack: https://thequietcollapsethomb.substack.com/
Marstons Mills Ma
May 23, 2026