Taxpayers for Common Sense, a 30-year-old federal budget watchdog group, has long advocated for an increase to the 12.5% royalty rate set in the 1920s. This week the group said U.S. taxpayers stood to lose $15.5 million in royalty revenue in the next 12 years from the rate reduction on the Colorado leases the BLM sold Tuesday.

“Taxpayers will once again be shortchanged as companies lock in decades of drilling under terms that don’t reflect the true value of America’s oil and gas resources,” reads a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense.