President Barack Obama called today for boosting funding for pipeline safety and renewable energy while again proposing to roll back several tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.
In his fiscal 2013 budget proposal, submitted to Congress today, Obama proposed boosting research funding and extending tax credits for clean energy as well as providing more money for energy-efficiency programs. He also called for rolling back oil and gas “tax preferences” worth $40 billion over 10 years.
It is the fourth straight year Obama has called for rolling back tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, but that call — and the budget more generally — is largely a symbolic statement because it stands little chance to pass through Congress.
Obama teased at the proposals during his State of the Union address, in which he outlined what he called a national economic “blueprint.”
“It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double down on a clean-energy industry that never has been more promising,” he said.
The president’s budget would boost renewable energy in a number of ways, most notably by extending key tax credits for renewable-energy production and clean-energy manufacturing. And it significantly boosts funding for research and development into a range of alternative-energy technologies and advanced vehicles.
The White House said those proposals would help the administration achieve its goal of putting 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015 and doubling the percentage of electricity from low-carbon sources like natural gas and wind by 2035 through Obama’s plan for a clean-power mandate.
The proposal indicates that Obama wants to aggressively promote federal support of renewable energy, even amid continuing Republican criticism of the administration’s loan guarantee to the now-bankrupt company Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel maker.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which administers pipeline-safety programs, would get a $75 million boost to $276 million. Pipeline safety in particular would get $67 million more than last year, including to hire more federal inspectors and bolster a state pipeline-safety grant program.
While the proposal to roll back oil and gas tax breaks probably won’t go anywhere in Congress, it nonetheless will serve as an indicator of Obama’s policy platform and vision ahead of the 2012 election. And it sets up a fight with the oil and gas industry, which quickly responded to the proposal.
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard told reporters it’s an example of how “his actions don’t match his words.”
The call for rolling back the tax breaks comes just weeks after Obama called for more domestic oil and gas production in his State of the Union speech.
Gerard also called the proposal bad policy because it would hurt an industry that has boosted the economic recovery, costing jobs and potentially sending some oil and gas investments to other nations. If the industry tax breaks were eliminated, Gerard said domestic oil and gas production would fall, meaning less revenue for the government.
“If the president is interested in balancing the budget, the way to generate revenues is to create economic activity, not penalize the best job creator in the country,” Gerard said.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that “instead of promoting new American energy production, this budget will make energy more expensive for American families and small businesses by imposing new taxes and fees.”
But environmental and alternative-energy advocates praised the budget. They have long called the energy industry tax breaks as unfair and said they discourage much-needed investment in cleaner energy sources.
“Overall, this forward-thinking budget would help America continue building on the progress toward a clean energy economy that creates jobs, improves our health and protects our environment,” said Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Daniel Weiss, climate strategy director for the Center for American Progress, praised the budget because it “would make taxes fairer by eliminating $40 billion in unnecessary breaks for big oil companies that made record profits in 2011.”
Among the tax breaks for the oil-and-gas sector are the “tertiary injection” deduction, a manufacturing deduction that multiple industries benefit from, and the “intangible drilling costs” deduction (for well-development expenses that don’t go toward elements of the final well).
“Many of these tax breaks that have been around which have created fossil-fuel preferences have been around decade after decade after decade,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters, adding he wasn’t surprised that the industry would attack an attempt to roll them back.
Obama’s proposed Interior Department budget is largely unchanged from last year, but it includes a number of new user fees for resource development on federal lands and offshore, including:
- Fees for processing oil-and-gas drilling permit applications and inspections.
- Fees for new oil-and-gas leases that companies aren’t producing.
The proposed Interior budget also contains other energy-related funding changes:
- Boost of renewable energy funding 21 percent to $86 million in 2013 to help the administration meet its goal of approving 11 more gigawatts of renewable projects on federal lands by the end of that year.
- Increase in funding by $28 million for the two new Interior agencies that handle offshore drilling: the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. The administration said the increase needed to ensure offshore energy development occurs safely and responsibly.
- Cut of $200 million from an Interior program that helps six states with offshore oil-and-gas development, including Texas, because “states have been slow to obligate funding.”
The Energy Department is a big winner in Obama’s budget, getting a 3.2 percent proposed funding boost over 2012. The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s budget would rise nearly 30 percent to $2.3 billion, including:
- An 80 percent funding boost for energy efficiency.
- Increased funding for development of advanced vehicle technologies.
- Hundreds of millions for research and development of solar, wind and geothermal.
The Energy Department budget also would:
- Provide $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which funds “transformative energy research.”
- Give $5 billion for the Office of Science, which bills itself as “the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy.”
- Cut research and development funding by 21 percent for fossil fuel technologies such as carbon capture and storage.
Obama’s budget also would fund a multi-year research initiative “aimed at advancing technology and methods to safely and responsibly develop America’s natural gas resources.” That initiative would include a study on “the environmental, health, and safety risks of natural gas and oil production from hydraulic fracturing in shale and other geologic formations.”
Obama offered his support for the shale-gas boom in his State of the Union address. But he said he wanted the U.S. to “develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk,” echoing longtime concerns of environmental advocates about the drilling technique that has increasingly become associated with shale gas.
It is true, the emperor does need some new clothes, but the alternate energy industry thinks this means they should build sewing needles, they will get around to sewing machines next generation.
If the alternate energy was worth anything then it would not need government support…. If it is good the market will take care of its self and if it can not stand on its own (it can’t) then the market will take care of it…. Government can not run ANY business as it can not even run itself….
Only fools believe in Nobama and his foolish ideas….
So he wants to increase taxes on O&G companies and use that money to invest in renewable energy. This means that my employer, an O&G supermajor, would have less money to invest into our renewable energy division which is one of the largest of it’s kind within the industry. Last year alone we invested over $300 million dollars into renewables. All of this money came from the profits made from our upstream oil business.
That’s all we need, another pipe dream like ethanol. How much money has been wasted on that super idea? The most renewable resource we have is all the hot air comming out of DC. If we could harness democommunist BS we would be energy independant in no time.
The Feds need to stop acting like venture capitalists and trying to pick winners to reward with subsidies and tax credits with our tax money. As it is, the feds end up backing cronies like Solyndra and missing the boat completely on ideas that really work. Energy innovation will not come from the Federal goverment any more than the iPad came from the Feds.
Oh for crying out loud, whatever this guy says, we do the exact opposite!
We’ll be OK if we do the opposite of what this clown wants.
We’ll be OK if we can hang on until November.
Please repeal everything this joker rammed down The People’s throats.
O’bozo doesn’t think he has given enough taxpayer money to solyndra-type scams and schemes. Now he wants to finance unicorn ranches and pixie dust farms as the energy sources of the ‘green’ future. Honestly, we need an adult in the White House as soon as possible.
why dont this so called president release all of tesla’s records ?
are they scared of something ?
AH President Obama is looking for more recipients for your cash that will go under in about a year. I don;t think he has any new ideas.
The O&G industry has been having TAX BREAK, it means they are LESS taxes than other industries who DON’T HAVE TAX BREAK. According to PDH42 ‘If the O&G energy was worth anything then it would not need government support’, TAX BREAK IS GOVERNMENT SUPPORT.
Compare tax break for the O&G industry to this US 2012 investment in future energy:
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/02/08/department-of-energy-to-dole-out-20m-for-research/
It’s clear the US is not doing what it needs to do, it’s doing what it wants to do. Fossil fuel is a finite resource, once it’s gone there will be no more. Ask people like PDH42 what we are going to do once we burn the last drop of fossil fuel (assuming Earth is still livable), the answer will be ‘Jesus will come save us’.
What a blithering idiot Obama is. To continue pumping billions of dollars into uneconomic wind and solar projects that will go belly-up without continued subsidies is mindless. Currently, it costs over three times as much to generate electricity from either solar or wind as it does from natural gas. His answer is to try to make natural gas MORE expensive by increasing taxes.
pdh42, I suppose that means that you also favor rolling back tax breaks for oil and gas companies?
Why is Dear Leader always in “lecture” mode?
Wagging your finger at us won’t make your point any more valid, nor will it make your proposal any more palatable. You’re the president of the United States for Pete’s sake, not a junior college sociology lecturer.
November 6th can’t come fast enough to get rid of this clown.
YES YES WE NEED MORE SOLYNDRAS OUT THERE – OPPS ONE OTHER JUST FAILED THE OTHER DAY. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IHAS BECOME A A PLACE FOR SEED CAPITAL FOR RISKY NEW START UPS. OH SHUCKS IT IS JUST TAXPAYER MONEY AND THOSE PESKY REPUBLICANS THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP THIS KIND OF STUFF OR IDS IT THEY ARE FOR IT TOO!!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html
Yawn… Germany, Spain, Britain, etc aren’t having much success with wind and solar energy. Why waste taxpayer’s money on that in USA?
Look Solyndra was great-great for his campaign contributions. Don’t forget he already backed via a Loan guarantee to SunPower for $1.1 BILLION, so if he’s gonna stick us with more of his Bull, at least he’s lowered it some. The ‘Munity Organizer says solar be the thang, so why would anyone NOT believe what he sayeth-after all, his Aunt aint here living off welfare for nothing (BTW, just HOW did she get here and who helped get her here)?
A million battery powered cars by 2015….and Chevy can’t sell 1,000 Volts a month.
Most car companies, while building battery powered cars now or the near future, have invested heavily in hydrogen fuel cell technology, shame the loons in the white house don’t have a clue about that.
Obama simply thinks he has been appointed by some diety
( maybe himself ) to personally fix every flaw he can
find in this country. He has found lots and actually
fixed almost none.
What is silly is pumping billions in subsidies into extremely profitable companies. The top 5 oil & gas companies made over $36 billion in profits last quarter alone; asking them to give up $40 billion in subsidies over 10 years is a no brainer. Instead of continuing to ramp up investments in polluting industries, why don’t we try a few alternatives. Haven’t seen a break in a solar panel or a collapsing wind tower kill off the Gulf shrimp industry, so that gets my vote.
So SaltyCroc, 4 billion a year and 36 billion in profit… do you have any idea what the subsidies go for? Didn’t think so.
Speaking of polluting industries, even see how they make batteries for electric cars? Ever sit behind a semi on the interstate hauling PART of ONE BLADE for ONE WINDMILL? Yup, there’s your alternatives. What a fraud.
You see, if these “alternatives” were so good you’d think investors whose e-mail address didn’t end in .gov would be lining up to throw money at them.
Tell you what, sonny. If you believe in these alternatives, write one of them a check.
More welfare. Whether it’s for oil companies or solar companies, it’s still just payoffs to some politicians friends. Neither side of the aisle is willing to admit this, and the taxpayer is left paying the bill. Blah.
The folks in the O & G industry, as you can see here, have no concern for the future of this country. Their corporately shrunken minds can think only of today. Whatever the P & L statement and stock value shows is all they care about. Competition be damned!
You sure tell it is an election year. One week Obama is all we must drill more domestically, blah, blah, blah then the next he is all “green” and cutting off the US oil and gas industry at the knee, oil is bad, blah, blah, blah.
SaltWaterCroc …………….. there are no ” subsidies ” for the oil industry. There are tax incentives and tax treatments that are meant to encourage investment by delaying tax liability, such as the IDC and depletion.
But there are no direct payments to oil companies.
Why don’t you and Obama quit playing a game of semantics with the tax code ?
Here is the definition of ” subsidy ” ….
sub·si·dy
noun?/?s?bsid?/?
subsidies, plural
A sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive
- a farm subsidy
- they disdain government subsidy
A sum of money granted to support an arts organization or other undertaking held to be in the public interest
A sum of money paid by one government to another for the preservation of neutrality, the promotion of war, or to repay military aid
A grant or contribution of money
A parliamentary grant to the sovereign for state needs
A tax levied on a particular occasion
Bad news for the eagle. Wind energy has killed tens of thousands of protected eagles and environmentalists call it “the price of progress” Blatant hypocrisy.
And here are the exact tax provisions that Obama keeps calling ” subsidys ” Most are aimed at the Ma and Pa oil company working in old depleted fields , trying to get the last drops out.
In the overall big picture, they don’t amount to a hill of beans because the amount of oil they produce is inconsequential. But they do create jobs and keep people employed.
I wish Obama would give up on this populist rhetoric, it gets old draggin this stuff out every time he pops off.
http://www.bakerbotts.com/file_upload/2009ExplanationoftheObamaAdministrationsTaxProposalsJump.htm
@pdh42 With that thinking, our farmers/oil companies are worthless too due to the amount of subsidies they receive. Silly man.
Just what America needs… more federally-funded solar scams.
No subsidies for the oil companies? okay.
(Pay no attention to the military bases, the aircraft carrier battle groups, the ‘friendly’ dictators, the shock and awe, the body bags, etc. Those are all incidentals. Mere pocket change.)
=/
Sighs….more lies and more money being thrown away on an energy source that may be 100 years from being feasible….
The country is broke you communist. We shouldn’t be increasing funding for anything. I do think we need to increase taxes though..on EVERYONE, starting with the half of the population that pays no taxes at all
To those attacking green energy because it is using government help, better go study the role of the Feds in transportation over the years. The first transcontinental railroad in the 19th century is a fine example. So was the buillding of a road ntwork early last century to help the automobile catch on. So was the Eisenhower-initiated Insterstate Highway System. BUCKETS of federal money for all three.
The only difference now is that OBAMA is pushing it.
Why don’t you hypocrites go after my own Governor, Rick Perry — a huge booster and spender of state dollars for wind power??? Oh. Wait. HE’S Republican!!! That’s DIFFERENT!!!
Calling Obama a tyrant is giving him far to much credit. A dangerous and delusional, as well as rather uninformed person is closer to the mark. He is also a hypocrite, as demonstrated by prostrating himself to the Brazilians in order to secure their as yet undeveloped ultradeepwater oil, yet without shame berating and castigating his own country’s O&G sector at every turn.
Last time I checked, even his precious air force one burns oil. But then again what does he care when us taxpayers foot the fuel bill.
The delusional thinking on this site is overwhelming. Oil and gas is the most subsidized industry in this country’s history. Only in the minds of the infantilized could reduction of tax breaks inspire such a temper tantrum.
The “supermajors” only participate in renewable energy so that they can front-run the renewable energy industry itself, obtaining technologies to be stored away never to be seen again.
They also have a direct line to the purveyors of money creation — if they wanted to, they wouldn’t have to make or produce a thing and could still rake in record profits.
How is it good for the country to put industrial policy in the hands of the “awl” industry’s banker-masters in Washington instead of in the hands of an elected policymaker?
The Occupier in Chief continues to pick economic winners and losers; this is consistent with the tenets of central economic planning that characterize socialism.
In other news, Chevrolet sold 7,671 Volts in 2011, despite a $7,500 federal subsidy per vehicle. Apparently, the market has its own views on the feasibility of green technology. And so it goes in the USSA, where all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
What we all need to realize is that Obama is the master of the mis-direction and distraction. This whole “spend more….spend more!”…mind set has really nothing to do with developing alternative energy; it has everything to do with paying his environmental investors back and propogating his support from the far left. The corruption in this administration is so wide-spread, to include the major unions, the mass media, the largest number of “Czars of this and that with their committees,” and others, that we may never recover from this Socialist agenda in our lifetimes! So, you go ahead, Barry O., and raise taxes on everyone, eliminate the tax concessions to companies that are in the height of re-investing their money in the development of energy sources here and now, and at the end of the day, you cap it all by implementing the worst legislation in U.S. history (Obamacare). Then, we will all have to depend on government for our very survival. I am only glad that I won’t be around to witness the destruction you have wrought on America. It will be truly to tragic to bear!
This budget proposal is absolutely perfect in every respect. For the sake of our nation, we should notify our lawmakers to pass it. It’s about time we have a clear and concise direction to take. LET’s DO IT!!!
If we could turn the bullcrap, coming out of DC, into energy we could supply the entire world… Just what Obama spews would end our dependance on foreign oil!
This guy has almost totally destroyed our country… Anything but Obama in 2012!
How about Ending the Hundreds of Millions of (taxpayer) dollars to
the bankrupt clean energy (Obama buddy) companies. Someone is cleaning
up ($$$$$$$$$), and it’s not taxpayers.
Sam – put down the bong.
The sock-puppetry here is impressive; if Marriner Eccles were alive today he’d be so proud of the destruction his minions have wrought.
Never forget: putting financiers in charge of picking winners and losers has destroyed the US.
I just hope big “awl” (and their morbidly obese slave army) will be held responsible when people come to the heartbreaking, soul-crushing realization about what the quality of their everyday lives could have been like in a scenario of true competition.
“The “supermajors” only participate in renewable energy so that they can front-run the renewable energy industry itself, obtaining technologies to be stored away never to be seen again.
They also have a direct line to the purveyors of money creation — if they wanted to, they wouldn’t have to make or produce a thing and could still rake in record profits.”
Supermajors invest in renewables because it is a form of energy and they are all energy companies. The goal for each energy company is to produce and distribute energy in a profitable manner and secure reserves for future development. Those subsidies are put in place to ensure that energy companies can operate at a 8-10% margin and still have money to invest into future developments. The day that independent oil companies can no longer operate in this manner is the day that this world is totally in the hands of national oil companies which are managed by in large by countries that do not think highly of ours. So tell me, which scenario is better?
Those margins would come naturally in the hands of innovators, not parasites. It sounds like your cognitive dissonance has overwhelmed you and you’re retroactively trying to meet some number instead of working to it through innovation and fiscal responsibility.
The national oil companies which hold US citizens in absolute contempt are none other than the ones you seek to defend. No other country in the world can boast oil companies as openly genocidal and environmentally hostile as the ones here in the US. Everyone realizes this but you; try to reign in your Keynesianism and entitlement complex and make an attempt to learn more about the world you live in.