John Shimkus: “I want to talk about section 199. And I know my colleagues on the other side like to talk about the Big Oil guys, but…”

“I want to talk about section 199. And I know my colleagues on the other side like to talk about the Big Oil guys, but let's talk about the Little Oil guys, the ones in southern Illinois. In southern Illinois, we produce about 30,000 barrels of crude oil per day amounting to $574 million minus about one-eighth of that to royalty owners. These are small mom and pop operations of marginal wells, you know, those wells that you have to put energy in to get the crude oil out. Section 199 has three primary purposes: exploration, that is a good thing. Production, that is a good thing. Refining, that is a good thing. Three good things to help address our reliance on imported crude oil from overseas. The attack on section 199 in this bill to a small mom and pop oil producer in southern Illinois in 2008 will be a $200,000 tax increase. In 2009, it will be a $300,000 tax increase on this small marginal oil producer. This is money that she, a woman-owned business operation, cannot use to expand, employ, provide health care benefits to.”