Sponsors (17)
The bill creates a steady new revenue stream to strengthen Social Security solvency while risking pressure on Interior/Forest Service funding, potential delays in local projects, and complications for offshore revenue-sharing arrangements.
Seniors, retirees, and Social Security (OASI) beneficiaries would get stronger long-term solvency because the OASI Trust Fund would receive a new, predictable revenue stream equal to 10% of prior-year public-lands receipts.
State, tribal, territorial, and local governments retain their existing shares of land-revenue distributions because the provision forbids reducing their distributions, protecting local budgets.
Recreationists, grazers, resource users, and taxpayers are protected from immediate fee increases because the rule clarifies agencies cannot raise user prices to cover the transfer.
State, local, and tribal programs and Interior/Forest Service funding flexibility could be constrained because the bill increases OASI receipts without an explicit congressional offset to cover the transfer.
Rural communities and local projects could see reduced budgets or slower Interior/Forest Service projects if agencies remit existing receipts (rather than newly generated revenues) to meet the 10% transfer.
States and taxpayers could face complications or disputes over existing Outer Continental Shelf royalty trusts and revenue-sharing arrangements if 10% of offshore receipts are diverted to Social Security.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires annual deposits equal to 10% of prior-year revenues from specified federal public lands into the Social Security trust fund, while preserving existing revenue shares to states and tribes.
Directs 10% of annual revenues collected from covered federal public lands to be deposited into the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. Covers lands managed by the Department of the Interior (including specified Outer Continental Shelf submerged lands) and the Forest Service, while preserving existing revenue-sharing payments to states, tribes, territories, and local governments and prohibiting agencies from raising prices to generate the revenue. The change is an automatic, ongoing allocation rule that adjusts how a portion of receipts from public-lands activities is transferred to the Social Security trust fund each fiscal year. It does not create new fees, alter how states or tribes are paid, or designate the funds for any use other than deposit into the Social Security trust fund.
Official title: To deposit portions of revenue generated from public lands into the Social Security Trust Fund.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Paul Gosar · Last progress January 3, 2025