API Says Obama Budget Punishes Oil & Gas Industry, Destroys Jobs

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The American Petroleum Institute is not impressed with the budget recently released by President Obama. They point out the way Obama (once again) attempts to punish the oil and gas industry. In typical Democrat fashion, Obama wants to slap higher taxes on oil and gas. Of course anything you tax you get less of, which is exactly the wrong thing to do in the jobless Obama economy. Some people never learn.

Since Obama trotted out a retread of last year’s budget, the API decided to simply re-issue their statement from last year too. Clever…

Editor’s Note: For the fifth year in a row, the president’s budget singles out the leading source of American energy and jobs. Even the president’s own allies in the Senate have moved away from this kind of punitive tax directed at one industry. It’s bad public policy.

Given that the White House has essentially recycled its budget, we decided to recycle our statement from last year! Please find our statement below:

WASHINGTON, February 13, 2012 April 10, 2013 – In remarks to reporters this morning, Jack Gerard, President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, expressed disappointment with the proposed tax increases on the oil and natural gas industry in the administration’s 2013 2014 budget plan, especially in light of the president’s seeming endorsement of more domestic oil and natural gas development in his state of the union address last month:

“The president’s 2013 2014 budget plan returns to the well of bad ideas and backtracks on his state of the union commitment. Instead of advancing constructive pro-development policies, his budget plan calls for increased taxes on America’s oil and natural gas industry.

“Increasing our taxes would push oil and natural gas investment overseas and diminish job-creation and economic activity here at home. After a handful of years, we would see less domestic energy production – particularly of natural gas – more imports, fewer new jobs, and, eventually, depressed tax, royalty and other revenues.

“Frankly, the administration should be trying to replicate the success America’s oil and natural gas industry has had in creating jobs and growing the economy primarily through development on private and state lands. The evidence clearly shows that what we’re doing is working.

“If the industry’s job-creating investments are a stimulus for the nation, then what the administration is proposing is an anti-stimulus. To spur new jobs, the president advocates tax breaks for everyone but the oil and gas industry – the one sector with the proven ability to create jobs and already supporting 9.2 million of them.”

API represents more than 490 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers more than $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested more than $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.*

    *American Petroleum Institute (Apr 10, 2013) – President’s budget would tax one of nation’s biggest job creators