Heidi Alexander: “we have been debating tax subsidies to the big oil companies. The bill proposed by the Senator from New Jersey would…”

“we have been debating tax subsidies to the big oil companies. The bill proposed by the Senator from New Jersey would have limited it to just the big five oil companies even though many of the tax breaks or tax credits or deductions they receive are the same tax credits that every other company may take--Starbucks, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Google, and Hollywood film producers for example. Many of the other credits look a lot like the R&D tax credit or other tax credits all American businesses may receive. Well, I am one Senator who is very intrigued with the idea of looking at all of the tax breaks in the Tax Code. There are currently about $1.2 trillion a year in what we call tax expenditures, and those are intended to be for tax breaks we think are desirable. I am ready to look at all of them and use the money to reduce the tax rate and/or reduce the Federal debt. But if we are going to talk about energy subsidies--tax subsidies--we ought to talk about all energy subsidies. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has asked the Congressional Research Service to do just this. It is an excellent study, and I commend Senator Cornyn for asking for it. This is some of what it finds. According to the report, fossil fuels contributed about 78 percent of our energy production in 2009 and received about 13 percent of the Federal tax support for energy.…”