Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Washington. There are many things about having more safety and environmental protection in the gulf that we can all agree on. Unfortunately, this bill goes way beyond those agreement type of provisions. There is a $2-a-barrel tax increase in this bill. And there is a proportional tax increase on natural gas production as well. And as was pointed out earlier, it's not just on offshore oil and gas production, but on onshore Federal lands. So it goes way beyond the discussion we are having about the gulf. It's going to add up to $22 billion. And this is not the time to be raising taxes on energy. We're trying to come out of a recession. Many of us are asking, Where are the jobs? And taxing energy and making the consumer and industry pay more for energy, it's just not the right time to do that. And we're putting this, if the bill takes effect, on existing oil and gas production. That's blatantly unconstitutional. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that we as the Federal Government will have to refund about two-thirds of that $22 billion, or $14 billion, the proportion that applies to existing oil and gas production, back to the producers because it's unconstitutional. It's an impairment of contracts to come in the middle of a contract and say, by the way, we are adding a big tax increase to your energy production. So why are we taxing industry and the consumer when we're trying to come out of a recession?”