Check out this informative post by Forbes’ Christopher Helman, who notes that Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the magazine’s list of companies that paid the most in income taxes in 2011 were … energy companies.

That might surprise some people, given White House rhetoric about oil and natural gas companies not paying their “fair share.” It turns out Big Oil is the country’s Biggest Taxpayer. Here’s how Forbes’ data looks in a chart:

As you can see by the blue line, ExxonMobil ($27.3 billion), Chevron ($17.4 billion) and ConocoPhillips ($10.6 billion) occupy the top three spots in Forbes’ income-tax-paying ranking. Occidental Petroleum comes in at No. 18 ($2.9 billion).

Now check the chart’s red line. It shows that all four energy companies’ effective tax rates topped 40 percent – ExxonMobil 4... 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 New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that permitting in the Gulf of Mexico in the year since the administration’s deepwater drilling moratorium ended is slightly lower than it was in the year before the 2010 Macondo accident:

“Feb. 28, 2011, was the date that the Interior Department approved the first permit for an oil company to drill a new well in more than 500 feet of water after it had implemented new safety rules. In the year since then, there have been 61 permits to drill new wells in more than 500 feet of water issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and its successor agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. In the same one-year period from Feb. 28, 2009, to Feb. 27, 2010, the government issued 67 such permits.”

The... more »

On its face, a federal provision requiring oil and natural gas companies to be transparent about what they pay to foreign governments for energy projects in those countries -- licenses, taxes, royalties and other fees -- sounds like a good idea. And it is. The provision enacted in 2010 was designed to help people in resource-rich countries know what their governments are doing with those resources.

Unfortunately, good intentions don't always ensure fairness. With these disclosure requirements there are unintended consequences that could harm some U.S. oil and natural gas companies' ability to compete in the global market with larger, state-owned rivals. These include:

• Reporting rules that require public disclosure of detailed information about payments to foreign governments, pote... more »

Two new studies commissioned by API illustrate the benefits of the 1995 Deep Water Royalty Relief Act. As we explained on Monday, the act purposefully created financial incentives for drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and it led to new technologies and huge investments in the production of domestic oil and natural gas.

As API's Erik Milito explains, "While this Act was primarily intended to encourage oil production at a time when the nation was in desperate need of new oil supplies, these studies show that they were also a boon to U.S. taxpayers and great stimulus to the nation's economy."

The study by Advance Resources International (ARI) examined the deep water leases purchased by oil and natural gas companies between 1996 and 2000. It found that 3,391 deep water leases... more »