Orange Beach, AL – (OBA) – Since 2009 about $153.3 million dollars has come into the state from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act from money paid for oil and gas leases in the Gulf off of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Every cent of the Alabama allotment – it comes in three payments – has been spent, as intended, in Baldwin and Mobile counties.

“A lot of this money is spent enhancing shorelines or protecting wetlands, preservation, too,” Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Daphne, said. “It’s not road and bridge money. It’s really tied to offsetting or mitigating the impacts of offshore oil and gas drilling and exploration and that’s what it gets used for. And, that’s why we fight as hard as we can to keep it in the coastal political subdivisions of the state.”

In the past few years, Elliott has introduced bills to ensure the money continues to flow to the coastal counties and last year it got approved by the full Senate. In the House, the bill never made it out of committee.

“But it will come up again this year and we are going to pass it,” Elliott said. “It just codifies in state law that the state’s portion of GOMESA funding will be spent in the coastal political subdivisions of the state, Mobile and Baldwin counties and that it won’t be used for anything in other parts of the state.”

Elliott said the governor’s office has given mixed signals on support for his bill and has tried to add items into it that would allow the GOMESA money to go to counties other than Mobile and Baldwin.

“The governor’s office has been good and has kept their word in making sure they spent it in Mobile and Baldwin County but at the same time they’ve also advocated with amendments to my legislation in the past the opportunity to spend it in other counties that may impact the waterways of the coastal political subdivision,” Elliott said. “You’ve seen the map of Alabama’s river ecosystem and under that logic it could be used almost anywhere in the state of Alabama. We certainly don’t want that happening to offshore oil and gas revenues yet again.”

The most visible project with GOMESA funding is the Baldwin County boat launch on the Intracoastal Waterway west of the toll bridge in Orange Beach, a $10 million project that was included in the 2020 GOMESA funding. Gov. Kay Ivey announced in September the 17 projects getting GOMESA money to the tune of $40 million for 2021.

Of late, the GOMESA funding pipeline faced a challenge from President Joe Biden when he declared a moratorium on the issuance of new Gulf of Mexico gas and oil leases in January. A federal judge in Louisiana, in a suit filed by 13 states including Alabama, issued an injunction against the moratorium and the annual round of leases were sold earlier this month. The Biden administration plans to appeal to honor a campaign promise to cut back use of oil and gases it says emits greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming.

The new leases, however, are not expected to have an impact on gas prices because it will likely be years before oil or natural gas comes from any of the recently sold leases. NPR reported “oil prices are global and often determined by how much crude the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sells in the market. It will take years for the leases auctioned off on (Nov. 17) to produce oil, and challenges from environmental groups are expected.”

According to the Board of Ocean Energy Management, there are currently 2,021 active leases in the Gulf covering 10.7 million acres.

Beginning in 2007 37.5 percent of all qualified gulf revenues are shared among the four states and their coastal counties, according to a Department of Interior GOMESA explainer on its website.  Also, 12.5 percent goes to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

“There was phase one which was from 2009 to 2017 and each year a disbursement is made in the March-April timeframe to the state and both counties,” Jeremiah Kolb of the Lands Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said. “Phase one was kind of minimal funds. The way they had it set up in phase one there weren’t a lot of disbursements because there wasn’t a lot of leases.”

In 2017, the area of the Gulf included in the GOMESA lease money sharing was expanded and the money coming in became more substantial. While the largest annual amount to Alabama in phase one was $7.7 million through 2017. The expanded areas were counted toward the 2018 total and it jumped to $26.7 million, according to the Department of Interior website.

“Phase two actually started in 2017 but we didn’t get disbursements until the next year so from ’18 until ’21 that’s when we started receiving larger funds in the $20-million-plus range,” Kolb said. “In 2020 we got the largest amount we’ve gotten so far and that was $40 million and this past year we got $28 million. I anticipate the amount to be closer to $21 million right now. I think it’s going to be similar to what we got in 2021.”

Here are the yearly disbursements for the state of Alabama since GOMESA funding began flowing in 2009:

• 2009: $7.7 million total, Baldwin County $712,876, Mobile $831,892, state $6.1 million

• 2010: $813,957 total, Baldwin County 75,122, Mobile County $87,699, state $651,166

• 2011: $257,277 total, Baldwin County $23,744, Mobile County $27,710, state $205821

• 2012: $93,272 total, Baldwin County $8,824, Mobile County $9,830, state $84,618

• 2013: $88,516 total Baldwin County $8,824, Mobile County $9,830, state $69,861

• 2014: $1.2 million total, Baldwin County $118,220, Mobile County $131,698

• 2015: $666,763 total, Baldwin County $61,612, Mobile County $71,740, state $533,410

• 2016: $90,773 total, Baldwin County $8,609, Mobile County $9,583, state $72,581

• 2017: $263,089 total, Baldwin County $24,763, Mobile County $27,853, state $210,471

• 2018: $26.7 million total, Baldwin County $2.4 million, Mobile County $2.8 million, state $21.4 million

• 2019: $30.5 million total, Baldwin County $2.7 million, Mobile County $3.3 million, state $24.4 million

• 2020: $50 million total, Baldwin County $4.5 million, Mobile County $5.4 million, state $40 million

• 2021: $35 million total, Baldwin County $3.2, Mobile County $3.8 million, state $28 million

In 2021 Mississippi received $36.5 million, Louisiana $109.9 million and Texas $67.3 million.