Congress just handed oil companies control of their own permitting budget
H.R. 7831 — License to Drill Act · Filed by Mike Kennedy (R-UT) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 5, 2026 · Passed chamber
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What it does
This bill extends the deadline for the Department of Interior to collect application fees for oil and gas drilling permits on federal land from 2026 to 2037—an 11-year extension. It also redirects all collected fees into a dedicated fund for permit processing rather than the general Treasury, effectively creating a self-funded agency operation for oil and gas permitting.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative effect is to remove appropriations-based oversight of oil and gas permitting and replace it with a self-funding mechanism paid by industry. This converts a public regulatory function into an industry-funded operation, reducing democratic control and creating a structural incentive to maximize permit volume.
What the text implies
- By making BLM permit processing self-funded from industry fees, the bill severs the appropriations process—Congress loses its primary lever to constrain drilling or demand environmental review. Permitting becomes insulated from annual budget negotiations.
- The fee-funded model creates a structural conflict of interest: the agency's budget grows with permit volume, incentivizing faster approvals and higher throughput rather than rigorous environmental analysis.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
oil and gas exploration and production companies; oil and gas lease holders; drilling contractors