Governments and private landowners have collected royalties on mineral resources for centuries. When more comprehensive measures to account for the externalities of mineral extraction are politically or practically unavailable, federal and state governments might consider adjusting the royalty rate as an expedient way to account for these externalities and benefit society. One key policy question that has not received attention, however, is whether a royalty rate can and should be manipulated in this way, notwithstanding statutory discretion. This Article fills that gap in the literature, evaluating the argument for increasing federal or state fossil fuel royalty rates through historical, theoretical, and practical lenses: by considering the meaning of royalties, the economic justifications for royalties, the legislative history of the implementation of federal royalties, and some of the considerations that private landowners have relied upon in setting royalties. It also compares mineral royalties to those used in the copyright context, revealing common threads with respect to underlying rationales and desired policy outcomes. It concludes that royalties have been used as pragmatic policy tools from almost their inception, and federal and state governments should exercise their existing statutory discretion to adjust mineral royalty rates to promote public welfare. In particular, it would be reasonable for governments to adjust mineral royalty rates to account for negative externalities that are not otherwise addressed by regulation or to pursue royalty rate reform to meet other policy goals.