In an email from the Hillary campaign team was the following problem statement:
It’s time to end our country’s dependence on foreign oil. Unstable prices at the pump are a burden for families. Our dependence props up extremist regimes that threaten our national security. And the threat to our environment from burning fossil fuels is very real.
Hillary is proposing a plan that puts “some of the oil industry’s windfall profits into a fund that would help develop practical new sources of renewable energy”… and Polimom has some worries about this.
In boom times (like now), the oil and gas industries (Big Oil) are the boogeymen — clear targets as they reap record profits, but the other, less-profitable years pass unremarked.
Here along the Gulf Coast, though, we’ve been through the bust years, too — years where the prices went so low that exploration was frozen, projects didn’t go forward, and the industry laid off people in droves. In Houston in the 80s, in fact, there was a terrible downturn, and the values of houses plummeted as folks had to leave, leading to a regional depression.
I don’t recall hearing any outcry about helping the oil industry then.
If we’re going to target the oil and gas industries in times of high prices, are we then planning to close their gaps when prices are low … as they will no doubt be again?
(Cross-posted to The Moderate Voice)
Anyone remember when gas was below $1 a gallon? I’m guessing the last time was either about or less than ten years ago.
There is already a nice size tax specifically on oil company revenue. I’m curious why the tax from that isn’t just diverted into a energy source research fund and why a new tax must be made. That $30 billion that Exxon found recently was taxed. So the government also gets a nice check…I wonder what they planned on doing with it?
I remember when the taxes on gasoline were raised – thrice – during Bill Clinton’s first term. Each time, the price rose a nickle per gallon, as the retailers tried to pass the cost along to the consumers… then dropped back, as the consumers weren’t buying it. Nobody suggested that the government step in and prop up the price back then, if I recall. Nor did they espouse much sympathy for the companies who watched that tax come right out of their profit margin (in some cases, obliterating it completely.)
Interestingly enough, while people decry the oil industry’s profits as harmful to consumers, they are willing to push for increased taxes – by up to several DOLLARS/gallon – on said same consumers, to ‘encourage conservation and fund development of alternative energy sources.”
Hogwash.
~EdT.
Open up ANWAR.
Oops I meant ANWR
“then dropped back, as the consumers weren’t buying it. ”
You do realize that if all oil companies passed it on, you would pay it.
There’s a fairly interesting thread on this post going at The Moderate Voice, y’all…