Barrasso Leads Senators Blasting New Oil, Gas & Coal Taxes

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso led 24 senators in expressing

grave concern regarding the administration's continued hostility towards American energy production.

A letter from the group was sent to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

America's working families and small businesses are facing immense challenges including high energy prices.

At the same time, our allies and partners across the globe are asking for reliable American energy resources to escape their dependence on Russian energy and to deal with the energy crisis.

Instead of increasing US energy production, the administration is focused on increasing energy taxes, by once again doub[ling] down on weaponizing the tax code against US energy producers.

 

All of this was in response to the Treasury Department release of “General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 Revenue Proposals (Green Book),”

The President's proposal is $5 trillion in new tax increases.

The Treasury Department explained its intention to “Modify Energy Taxes” by eliminating “fossil fuel tax preferences.”

The Administration argues that the current law...

provides several credits, deductions, and other special provisions that are targeted towards encouraging oil, gas, and coal production.

The department argues that these provisions...

distort markets by encouraging more investment in the fossil fuel sector than would occur under a neutral system.

This market distortion is detrimental to long-term energy security and is also inconsistent with the Administration’s policy of supporting a clean energy economy, reducing our reliance on oil, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But that's not the end of these tax proposals.

The Biden Administration wishes to increase the corporate income tax rate to 28% and the corporate alternative minimum tax rate to 21%.

In addition to broad tax hikes, the administration...

has decided to go even further by specifically imposing additional burdens on energy producers by removing virtually every longstanding tax provision in the Internal Revenue Code designed to support traditional energy production, the senators argue.

These alarming proposals are neither policy neutral nor do they consider the fact that conventional energy production is the highest-taxed industry in the world, and pays high rates of tax to the federal government as well as state and local governments. They also ignore the detrimental impact the repeals will have, the senators wrote.

Oil, natural gas, and coal provide 80% of the U.S.’s energy source.

The Senators argue that,

the lavish subsidies and refundable tax credits afforded to the renewable energy industry when no other nation produces, or refines, with the same environmental standards we see with American-made energy.