The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recent quarterly oil and gas lease sale totaled around $7 million in receipts and covered nearly 8,000 acres of land.

BLM leased 14 Colorado parcels — making up 7,895 acres — to energy companies, granting them the exclusive right to explore and produce oil and gas for 10 years. These leases can be extended if the companies are producing oil and gas on the sites in “paying quantities,” according to a news release from the BLM.

The leases totaled $6,730,718 in revenue that will be dispersed between the federal government and Colorado, according to the news release. The state usually receives around 50% of the revenue.

The lease sale comes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4. Under the bill, the royalty rate for new federal onshore oil and gas production was dropped to a minimum of 12.5%, reversing the 16.67% rate set by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

“By lowering the federal onshore royalty rate from 16.67% to 12.5%, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduces the cost of doing business on public lands, making oil and gas development more economically attractive to industry. This is expected to spur additional leasing and drilling activity, which in turn supports increased domestic energy production and strengthens U.S. energy security,” a BLM official said in the release.

BLM also added that these leases are the first step in producing federal oil and gas resources and the bureau will ensure oil and gas development meets the requirements set forth by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and other applicable legal authorities. 

By statute, BLM is required to hold quarterly lease sales. In May, BLM announced a policy change to make the sales quicker, aiming to complete the entire process within six months.

To meet this goal, the BLM will no longer defer parcels prior to completing all National Environmental Policy Act reviews, allowing the reviews to be conducted simultaneously with the National Energy Policy Act compliance process.

These changes all come under Kathleen Sgamma — president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance — who was named director of the Bureau of Land Management by Trump in February.

The Associated Press contributed to this report