“We don’t make money on 90 percent of the things we do,” Mr. Ahuja said. “It is a really risky game.”

The surge in noncompetitive transactions has intensified debate over how well the federal government handles the task of auctioning off access to taxpayer-owned lands. Taxpayers get 12.5 percent of revenues produced from any oil or gas extracted from leased public land — or nothing but trivial rent payments if speculators fail to develop the land successfully.

More than 11 million acres of land leased by the federal government lies idle — or about half of all the land out on lease — property that may or may not ever be drilled for oil and gas.

The speculation, critics say, allows companies to lock up millions of acres of federal land in leases, complicating efforts to set it aside for other uses, such as wildlife conservation areas or hunting and recreation zones.

“People come to Montana and stay in Montana not because of the best weather or highest wages or the best beaches,” said John Todd, the conservation director at the Montana Wilderness Association. “They come here because we have access to ample public land, most of it that is in the same shape as it was when Lewis and Clark came here or before that.”

Because the speculators can resell the leases, they could also reap the gains from any increase in the value of their landholdings, gains that otherwise would go to American taxpayers, said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“We should not be flooding the market so it is easy for companies to sit back and wait to get to leases at fire-sale prices,” Ms. Alexander said. “The acceleration of leasing is doing just that. The industry is getting a great deal and taxpayers are not.”