WASHINGTON – On Saturday, Congress passed a bill that opens up about 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, the Washington Post reports. The legislation also gives Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi 37.5 percent of federal royalties from future drilling.

U.S. industrial consumer of natural gas say the offshore drilling could boost supplies and moderate prices. Opponents of the bill say that states against offshore drilling, such as California, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, would be tempted to support exploration off their shorelines in return for a new revenue stream.

The additional domestic production of oil and natural gas will benefit consumers throughout the United States by providing additional energy security and improving the delicate balance between supply and demand.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), co-author the bill with Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), told the newspaper that "this was the best Christmas present I could ever, ever have gotten or that the state of Louisiana could have gotten.” Louisiana stands to receive $650 million a year from the royalties.

Sen. Landrieu says the money from the drilling would go to help Louisiana restore coastal wetlands and take measures to protect such energy infrastructure as ports, pipelines and oil refineries. To ease congressional concerns that Louisiana will treat the royalties as a windfall for general spending, the state amended its constitution to restrict use of the money to those purposes, the newspaper reports.