Interior Department Made $12 Billion

The Interior Department said it made $12 billion in revenue from energy production on federal lands. More than half of that goes to federal coffers, making the program one of the biggest non-tax money makers. States and tribal governments get the rest. The total figure is $1 billion more than in fiscal 2011. The department said that was mostly because of bonus bids received for new oil, gas and coal lease sales. It also credited reforms within its Office of Natural Resources Revenue. It said employees came up with solutions like a data-mining effort to find companies in real time that were making reporting errors.