Use of Federal Lands for Energy Development. Energy Policy Study. Volume 8

摘要

Assuming that domestic energy resources continue to be developed by the private sector, the government faces the policy problem of transferring Federal lands to private control in such a manner as to both promote the efficient development of the resource and secure the public a maximum share of the return from such development. A system of direct sale of such development rights at a rate and in an order determined by private demands is shown to satisfy both goals perfectly in a world without uncertainty or market imperfections. Either uncertainty or market imperfection will result in failure of such a scheme to achieve one or both goals, so that a variety of modified policy approaches have been devised. Each of these modifications is itself imperfect, however, and unless carefully matched to the specific imperfection characteristic of the result to which it is applied, may actually aggravate the shortfall from the efficiency or revenue goals. Review of existing Federal lands policy reveals a wide range of these approaches, with three general problems: (1) in certain instances, regulatory devices adopted are inappropriate as corrective devices for major market imperfections characteristic of the resource; (2) more generally, the devices adopted generate new distortions of the resource-development pattern potentially more serious than those being corrected; and finally, fragmentation of resource development authority in the Federal government sharply reduces prospects for existing programs to plausibly improve on either the efficiency or revenue consequences of a direct-sale approach. (ERA citation 05:020745)