Energy Today - April 27, 2011
Rayola Dougher
Posted April 27, 2011
NOLA.com: Oil and Gas Industry Should Not Be Seen as a Source of New Federal Revenue, Louisiana Lawmakers Say: Louisiana lawmakers repeated their objections Tuesday to any new taxes or reduced subsidies for the oil and gas industry after House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he is open to the idea."Whether its proposed by President Obama or Speaker Boehner, I will strongly fight against any attempt to raise billions of dollars in new taxes on American energy exploration, particularly at a time when President Obama's policies have led to skyrocketing gas prices and have run more than 12,000 jobs out of the U.S. while making our country more dependent on Middle Eastern oil," Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said...John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, said it is wrong to suggest the industry is heavily subsidized when it provides $95 million a day in taxes, royalties, bonus bids and other fees to the government. Houston Chronicle: Oil Industry Calls Its Profits Vital to Retirees: With several major oil companies poised to report big first-quarter profits this week, the oil industry's largest trade group on Monday rolled out a study revealing that those gains translate to big benefits for teachers, firefighters and other state pensioners. According to the report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, oil and gas stocks were less than 4 percent of the holdings in public pension funds in Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but generated 8.6 percent of the funds' returns from 2005 to 2008...Robert Shapiro, the chairman of Sonecon and a Commerce Department undersecretary in President Bill Clinton's administration, said the report "tells us that, particularly for pension funds that are facing very daunting challenges over the next 20 years in funding their commitments ... that oil and gas investments, if anything, contribute to an easing of this problem."
Bloomberg: Shell Says Slow U.S. Drilling Permits in Alaska 'Irresponsible': Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) is being blocked from offshore oil and gas exploration in Alaska by the "irresponsible" delays of federal regulators, said the company's U.S. president, Marvin Odum. Shell, based in The Hague, has spent more than $2 billion for hundreds of drilling leases in Alaska since 2005, and has invested $1.5 billion on an exploration program that exceeds current regulatory requirements, Odum said. "Despite our most intense efforts, we have yet to drill a single well," Odum said..."The delay is frustrating and disappointing and it undermines confidence in the American regulatory system," he said. "Beyond that, you might call it irresponsible. Thousands of men and women were counting on those jobs, local businesses were counting on the revenue and communities were counting on the tax boost."
Additional Resources:
RedState: Let's Harness American Energy to Lower Gas Prices and Create Jobs