Posted on 02/27/2008 6:08:34 AM PST by Brilliant
With oil prices reaching new highs, House Democrats are taking aim at the oil industry ...in an effort to tap voter frustration over gasoline prices and oil-company profits.
...the House of Representatives is expected to approve a measure that would eliminate roughly $18 billion in tax incentives for oil and gas companies, and use the savings to fund tax credits and other incentives for renewable energy...
The measure comes as high energy prices put increased pressure on consumers. Oil yesterday finished at a new high of $100.88 a barrel in New York futures markets, putting it $2.88 below the inflation-adjusted high reached in April 1980. The average price of a regular gallon of gas this week was $3.13 a gallon, up about 75 cents from a year earlier...
Senate Democrats also held a hearing yesterday to put new pressure on the administration to take a tougher line against the industry in a dispute over royalties... Assistant Secretary of the Interior Stephen Allred told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that as much as $31 billion is at stake in the dispute, which centers on leases issued to oil and gas companies for the right to drill in the Gulf of Mexico from 1996 to 2000.
Industry groups counter that the tax incentives help stimulate oil-field investment, add new supplies to the market and keep jobs in the U.S. "These tax increases seem particularly egregious at a time when we are trying to stimulate the U.S. economy..." said Mark Kibbe, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute...
The industry also argues it was adhering to U.S. royalty-rate policy in the late 1990s, when royalties were reduced to stimulate domestic drilling...
Congressional Democrats have also sought to slow down an administration plan to allow oil-and-gas drilling...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
If the GOP were smart, they would play the John Galt trick on the Dems. Give them what they want, and watch them pay the price.
Rush made a very good point last week.
He wondered when democrats were going to go after the outrageous and unaffordable tuition fees at colleges and universities.
I guess one could refer to as “big education” if you wanted.
Oh yeah...that’s an industry run by liberals - so they get to soak the consumer for all they’ve got.
Oh, for pity’s sake. The Dems cry about the oil companies, yet refuse to drill in ANWR, or off the U.S. shore. Don’t believe the Dems are serious about getting the oil prices down at all.
You’re exactly right. All this oil villification is Democrat propaganda. They’re getting their palms greased on oil (no pun intended) plenty.
If they remove the tax incentives, won’t that cause the price of gasoline to INCREASE. These Democrats deserve an F- in economics.
Let’s blame farmers for high corn prices.
Producers don’t determine price... consumers do.
No. Let's give them subsidies. Shows how much RATS know about economics. This is scary stuff and what's more scary is that idiot voters in this country believe them.
By all means, let’s take the tax incentives FROM the ONLY industry producing viable, cheap, efficient fuel for automobiles on the road... and give them to non-existent companies in an industry that has produced zero results that is not producing non-existent fuels to run non-existent vehicles.
Do I got this right?
“eliminate roughly $18 billion in tax incentives for oil and gas companies”
Making it more expensive for O&G companies to find and produce hydrocarbons. Who will they pass that added expense on to?
Idiots
“Do I got this right?”
yes...I think you got it right.
What’s wrong? You don’t trust the smartest woman in the world?
You don’t think she knows what’s best for us?
You trust those evil BIG OIL MEN!!
Donchaknow...if only women like Hillary ran things, everything would be cheap, there would be no wars, and no one would default on their mortgages.
Bush can’t sign this; it would then be tagged as the GOP raising gas prices.
No, Bush must veto and let the Dems override the veto if they can.
This is true in the free market, but not in monopolies or cartels like OPEC.
Eliminating these tax incentives is not such a bad idea. With the U.S. dollar weakening as it has been over the last couple of years, we may very well end up in a situation where U.S. taxpayers subsidize an oil industry whose primary source of revenue is the EXPORT of oil from the U.S. to foreign customers.
Dimocrat strategy= raise taxes, refuse to open new areas to drill, That should reduce fuel prices? I guess I am missing something here! If they think the oil companies are greedy but won’t pass the hike on to consumers? I think all of these folks rode the short schoolbus!
GW has been maddening imprecise and incoherent on "Energy" . When I twice-voted for this charmingly tongue-tied yutz, the very least I expected was a few new refineries to get the go ahead, or at least encouragement.
GW has made very ineffective use of the "Bully Pulpit," and shown no leadership on "Energy." He has even been wishy-washy on "Global Warming," never even contesting Al Gore's more outrageous unscientific scaremongering. Imagine the turn-around Mumbles Bush could pull off on this and other issues if he had the wherewithal to just come out and say "we need more refineries, there is no oil shortage, Global Warming is a crock, yes pollution is bad, but we don't have much in this country ... etc. etc."
Being a fighting democrat is extra easy when you have George Bush passing you the ammo. Thanks to him and the rest of the country-clubbers at the RNC, we face a very real danger of a wipe-out in the WH, House and Senate. Let's just pray that this good, but incoherent and nuance-deaf fellow somehow manages to go out with a bang and not just (yet another) whimper. .
If the GOP were smart ..... What ho? Prayer time again? If the GOP were smart, there wouldn't be a Nancy Pelosi and the oil-price problem, which has sunk previous administrations would never happen. What happened was "No Leadership."
Can’t say I disagree with one word of that.
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