A package of bills that would end a 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil, open offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, and expand federal offshore revenue payments to coastal states will get taken up in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee before the August recess.

"As you all know, [Outer Continental Shelf] revenue sharing, oil exports are very key priorities of mine. I do have a bill, it's a consolidated bill, and it's my intention that that bill will move through the committee markup process before we adjourn for the August break. So that will be sitting out there. But there will be a process for that," committee Chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters Thursday.

The oil industry contends the export ban is outdated, saying it was designed in an era of scarcity. The shale energy boom, however, has turned the United States into the world's top oil producer. Advocates say scrapping the restriction would allow oil producers to fetch higher prices abroad and that there's a backlog at U.S. refineries that aren't equipped to process light sweet crude coming from shale regions.

But the politics behind axing the ban are tricky. While some early studies have shown ending trade restrictions would lower gasoline prices, most Americans believe it would do the opposite. That's the case that some independent refiners — which have enjoyed a windfall because they get crude, an input for their products, at a lower price but can still export refined products such as gasoline without restrictions — have made, along with some liberal Democrats.

On offshore drilling, the bill would require the Obama administration's proposed five-year plan that runs from 2017 through 2022 to include three new lease sales in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, where drilling has been prohibited since 2006. It also would expand offshore lease sales off Alaska's coast and in the South Atlantic.

Under the proposal, Murkowski would extend federal revenue payments to Alaska and South Atlantic states, while including Florida as one of the Gulf states — joining Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — to receive revenues from offshore drilling. The bill would raise the cap on payments to those states to $699 million in from 2018 through 2025, up from $500 million, and up to $999 million from 2026 through 2055.

While coastal states have pushed for a greater share of federal payments from energy resources produced off their shores — a concession Gulf states won in 2006 with the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act — efforts of expanding that policy have fallen short in recent years. Much of that has been caused by lawmakers from interior states who view the outer continental shelf as a federal resource rather than belonging to individual states.