|
|
Richard Hanna on Energy & Oil |
Proponent's Argument for voting Yes:
[Rep. Young, R-AK]: The Americans suffering from $4 a gallon gas today must feel like they're experiencing a sense of deja vu. In 2008, when gasoline prices reached a record high of $4.11 per gallon, the public outcry forced Congress to act. That fall, Congress lifted the offshore drilling ban that had been in place for decades. Three years later, most Americans would likely be shocked to learn that no energy development
has happened in these new areas.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
[Rep. Markey, D-MA]. In the first 3 months of this year, Exxon-Mobil made $10 billion off of the American consumer; Shell made $8 billion; BP made $7 billion. So what are these companies asking for? These companies are now asking that we open up the beaches of California, Florida & New England to drill for oil. People who live near those beaches don't want oil coming in the way it did in the Gulf of Mexico. Right now, those oil companies are centered down in the Gulf of Mexico. People are concerned because those companies have blocked any new safety reforms that would protect against another catastrophic spill. We have to oppose this bill because, first of all, they already have 60 million acres of American land that they haven't drilled on yet, which has about 11 billion barrels of oil underneath it and an equivalent amount of natural gas. This bill is just a giveaway to Exxon-Mobil and Shell.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
[Rep. Waxman, D-CA]: This bill is a direct assault on the Clean Air Act. Its premise is that climate change is a hoax and carbon pollution does not endanger health and welfare. But climate change is real. It is caused by pollution, and it is a serious threat to our health and welfare. We need to confront these realities. American families count on the EPA to keep our air and water clean. But this bill has politicians overruling the experts at EPA, and it exempts our biggest polluters from regulation. If this bill is enacted, the EPA's ability to control dangerous carbon pollution will be gutted.
Excerpts from letter to House leadership:
"We offer our full support for allowing the most anti-competitive and economically harmful tax provisions, specifically the wind energy production tax credit (PTC), to expire. Extending the wind PTC is a key priority for the Obama Administration and its efforts to prop up wind and other favored "green energy" technologies. Under President Obama, federal subsidies for wind have grown from $476 million per year when he first took office to $4.98 billion per year today. A one-year extension of the wind PTC would cost American taxpayers over $13.35 billion. [which] has caused significant price distortions in wholesale electricity markets.
"The value of the Wind PTC today it is worth 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour produced. A wind project that "begins construction" in 2013 could receive subsidies until 2026. By ending this program now we will have given the wind industry a more than generous phase-out for a credit that is being awarded to a mature technology with over 61,100 megawatts of generation installed across the country and 13,400 megawatts under development in 21 states. Over 43% of all electric generation nameplate capacity additions in 2012 were from wind, overtaking natural-gas fired generation as the leading source of new power generation."
OnTheIssues note: The wind PTC subsidy will likely stay in place as long as Obama is president. In general, Democrats support alternative energy credits such as the PTC (which also applies to biomass and geothermal energy), although some Democrats from coal states or oil states oppose the PTC. The Republican signatories of this letter complain about the $5B annual subsidy for renewable energy--but they ignore fossil fuels subsidies including: $3B for fossil fuel tax subsidy; $1B for fossil energy R&D; and a $7B annual subsidy for oil & gas exploration.