Update: The U.S. Senate failed to reach the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and the motion failed 51-47. (29 Mar 2012)

Today the Senate will vote to advance S.2204 sponsored by Sen. Menendez (D-NJ). This bill will raise taxes on major integrated oil and natural gas companies to subsidize other forms of energy and will do absolutely nothing to lower gasoline prices.

A new poll conducted by Harris Interactive, from March 9-13 of registered voters nationwide, found that 76% of voters believe that increasing energy taxes could increase consumer costs on a wide variety of products, including higher gasoline prices.

American voters overwhelming oppose higher taxes!

Additionally, this bill claims to end alleged “subsidies” for a handful of oil and natural gas companies. However, nothi... more »

Monday the White House had a blog post up saying:

“While profits soar, oil companies are receiving about $7,610 a minute in tax breaks.  That’s $4 billion a year of your money.”

During the latest economic downturn, when industries were shedding jobs and limiting spending, the U.S. oil and gas industry was doing the exact opposite.  Over the past few years we supported around 9.2 million U.S. jobs and, when given the opportunity, invested hundreds of billions of dollars into the United States to find new resources and generate the energy that American’s need.  So despite doing everything the Administration looks for in an industry – create jobs, invest in the United States, innovate – it does not appear to be enough.  The false argument now being made is that the industry is someh... more »

The President raised the issue of taxes on the oil and natural gas industry in his State of the Union speech, and we fully expect they will be part of the budget he will release next week. He also referred to the oil and natural gas industry as "yesterday's energy" and suggested increasing taxes on our industry to pay for investments in tomorrow's energy. While it's not news that we disagree with the President on this point, we believe the administration's approach on taxes is misguided, misleading and simply bad public policy. So, we think it's critical that we address misperceptions around these issues. Such as:

• That our industry is awash in unfair government subsidies; when the fact is that we provide more than $95 million per day to the federal treasury; pay an effective tax rate far... more »

In the President's State of the Union speech last night, he highlighted innovation as a way to spur our nation into the future and focused on free enterprise, higher education and reinvention as integral steps toward our economic goals. The US oil and gas industry clearly supports this approach and has throughout its history. We have been providing consistent sources of energy to fuel our economy and innovative products to support our lifestyle for over a century. We would hope that we could continue to do so going forward. Unfortunately, the President appears to have other ideas. Clearly he supports increasing taxes on our industry - a step which will undermine our ability to innovate, hire and reinvent ourselves to continue supplying America's energy needs. The President didn't offer... more »

Jeffrey Leonard has an article entitled "Get the Energy Sector off the Dole" in the January/February issue of Washington Monthly with some interesting policy ideas, but also some points greatly in need of clarification.

• Mr. Leonard attacks the intangible drilling cost deduction allowed for oil and gas producers as an often abused subsidy. Actually this deduction is no different than the deduction generally allowed for research and development; and, as such, it has helped drive new technologies that have led to the access and development of vast domestic oil and natural gas plays that Mr. Leonard concedes will be a huge factor in America's energy future. Further, there is no evidence of any real or perceived abuses of this deduction mainly, I expect, due to the fact that the IRS would have... more »