Oregon to Charge Undersea Cable Operators New Fees, Directing Millions to State Schools
Oregon lawmakers are set to replace a decades-old $5,000 one-time fee for undersea cables with a new pricing structure that charges $3 per linear foot of cable plus $7 per section of bore pipe within three miles of the coast. The Oregon Department of State Lands estimates this will generate millions per cable over a 20-year lease, with funds directed to the state's Common School Fund. For example, Amazon's Bifrost cable would cost about $1.45 million over two decades. The revised rates are considered competitive compared to California's $5 per foot annual charge. Oregon aims to remain attractive for tech investment, hosting 140 data centers and 16 undersea cables. Already-approved cables may be largely exempt, though some contracts like Bifrost included a clause allowing new fees with a $300,000 buyout option.
Editorial responsibility
- No named human review is recorded for this page.
- Reports are grouped by semantic similarity and deterministic rules. Language models may assist titles, summaries, translation and cross-source analysis; the page itself is projected from evidence records.
- Current automated evidence projection