Press Info
The MMS's Minerals Revenue Management Program is responsible for management of all revenues associated with both federal offshore and onshore mineral leases. The effort is one of the federal government’s greatest sources of non-tax revenues.
While MMS’s Offshore Energy & Minerals Management 
offices contend with all aspects of offshore federal leasing, federal onshore mineral leasing activities are managed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service.
Indian mineral leases (which are not federal leases and located only onshore) are administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management. The MMS MRM, in conjunction with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, provides revenue management services for mineral leases on Indian lands.
Operationally based at the Denver Federal Center in Colorado, the Minerals Revenue Management Program has field offices near principal energy development areas in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to augment the program.
Some federal lands are leased to individuals and companies for minerals development. Lease holders competitively bid, initially pay a bonus, and subsequently rent, for the right to develop these onshore and offshore lands.
If minerals are found, extracted and sold, the federal government is entitled to a certain percentage of, or royalty on, the production.
Using sophisticated, computerized accounting systems, the MRM processes nearly $1 billion (mostly via electronic funds transfers) each month. Bonuses, rents and royalties from more than 67,000 leases can amount to several billion dollars each year -- an amount that peaked to more than $23 billion in 2008 and has averaged approximately $13 billion during the past five years. Totals fluctuate with market prices, amount of production, and the number of lease sales.
For offshore leases, the Minerals Revenue Management Program distributes the collected money to U.S. Treasury accounts. In recent years, annual deposits have included nearly $900 million to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and $150 million to the Historic Preservation Fund. The remainder is sent to the U. S. Treasury's General Fund. Additionally, a portion of royalties from certain offshore federal leases, adjacent to seaward boundaries of coastal states, are shared with those states.
Distribution of revenues associated with onshore federal lands is generally split 50-40-10, with 49 percent of the money going directly to the state within which the specific lease was located. Forty percent is sent to the Reclamation Fund of the U.S. Treasury. This special account finances the Bureau of Reclamation's water projects in 17 western states. The remaining 10 percent goes to the Treasury's General Fund. One exception, Alaska, gets a 90 percent share of the revenues.
In Fiscal Year 2008, 35 states received $2.59 billion as their cumulative share of onshore federal leases.
Money collected for Indian mineral leases is returned -- l00 percent -- to respective Indian tribes or individual Indian mineral owners through the Office of Trust Funds Management.