Political Quotes

“To be fair, these proposals that were laid out do not necessarily come as a total surprise to us. Many of these were also part of last year's budget. Last September there was a senior official from the Treasury Department who raised some eyebrows. He was testifying and said that somehow America overproduces oil and gas-- overproduces oil and gas. As we continue to import about 60 percent of our total supply of oil and even some of our natural gas, that claim is incredible to me. Our Nation clearly imports too much oil, and we use too much oil. But we certainly do not produce too much of it. The administration is pursuing at least some of these tax increases and fees in order to ``end fossil fuel subsidies.'' Those are the words they use. This is part of an agreement reached with the G20 last year. But interestingly, the G20 seems to have a very different idea of what that actually means. According to the group, developed countries such as the United States and Canada only indirectly subsidize fossil fuels such as with certain tax treatment, and even these quasi-tax subsidies are small in comparison to the developing or underdeveloped countries. If there are any direct fossil fuel subsidies that this administration could then eliminate, you have to ask the question: What would those be? As nearly as I can tell, there are two programs that would technically qualify, by the G20's definition, as direct fossil fuel subsidies. The first one is LIHEAP.…”