YourVoice.Now Summary
Corporate BenefitsEnvironmentTransparency & AccountabilityOil and gas companies would keep paying drilling permit fees through 2037 — the agency could not raise them on its own.
Corporate Benefits
The Bureau of Land Management could not write a rule raising this fee to cover its rising review costs. Congress could still change the fee by passing a new law.
Without this bill, the drilling permit fee would stop after 2026. The bill keeps companies paying it for eleven more years.
Environment
Every dollar of the fee goes into a fund the agency spends on oil and gas permit work on federal land. The bill keeps that money flowing from 2027 through 2037.
Transparency & Accountability
The fee, the fund transfer, and the block on fee increases all end on the same date. Moving that date to 2037 means Congress would not have to look at them again until then.
More about this bill
If you do not work in oil and gas, you would notice no change in daily life. The bill affects companies that drill on federal public land and the government office that reviews their permits. Companies now pay a fee with each new drilling permit application. That fee is set to end after 2026. The bill keeps it through 2037. All of the money would go to a fund at the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that manages federal public land. The fund pays for the work of reviewing drilling permits. The bill also stops the agency from raising that fee through 2037. The law sets the fee at $9,500 per application, rising with inflation since 2015. It costs more than that today.
Congressional Summary
License to Drill ActThis bill extends through FY2037 the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) authority to collect oil and gas permit processing fees. For each new permit application, BLM collects a fee that is transferred to the BLM Permit Processing Improvement Fund. (Under current law, the fees are authorized through FY2026.)
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Reported to House
- Action Date
- 2026-05-20
- Date Added
- 2026-05-30
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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