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Santa Rosa Press Democrat – Congressmen oppose cuts in geothermal payments

March 12, 2014
News Articles

By Guy Kovner

Reps. Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman are urging President Barack Obama not to eliminate geothermal royalty payments totaling nearly $2 million a year to Sonoma and Lake counties.

Four other congressmen, including two Republicans, joined the call to preserve the payments, which amount to $2.2 million for eight California counties involved in steam power production.

The president’s proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 eliminates the 25 percent share of geothermal royalty payments given to counties. It would instead split the $12 million national total equally between the states and the federal government.

Counties deserve to “get their fair share” of the geothermal royalties due to their investments in developing energy resources, Thompson, D-Napa, said Wednesday in a statement.

The Geysers, the world’s largest geothermal energy field, spans the Sonoma-Lake county border in the rugged Mayacamas Mountains.

Sonoma County received $1.1 million in geothermal royalties in federal fiscal year 2013, and Lake County got $802,000, the two largest chunks of the funding to California counties.

Mendocino County received $750.

Sonoma County’s share goes into a pot used to cover $407 million of general fund expenditures, including public safety and county administration, Assistant County Administrator Chris Thomas said. The geothermal royalties are a fraction of the fund, but the loss would require the Board of Supervisors to cut services, he said.

Lake County applies its royalties to law enforcement and community services in the Middletown area, near The Geysers, and to planning, parks and environmental projects countywide, County Administrator Matt Perry said. Lake County’s general fund budget totals $57 million, and the loss of $800,000 “would do great harm to our budget,” Perry said.

Federal budgets have sought to eliminate royalty payments to counties in years past but it has never been enacted, Thomas and Perry said.

Sharing the royalties with counties was implemented in 2006, and repealing that practice would save the federal government $4 million in 2015 and $42 million over 10 years, according to the proposed federal budget.

Thompson said the revenue sharing accounts for “less than one-tenth of one percent of the federal debt” and ending the funding stream could “result in the elimination or reduction of essential (county) services.”

Joining Thompson and Huffman, D-San Rafael, on the letter were Reps. Joe Heck, R-Nev., Steve Pearce, R-N.M., John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, whose district includes much of Lake County, and Juan Vargas, D-El Centro.

Issues:Fiscal Responsibility