Gas Prices

Dems: Ending Tax Breaks For Big Oil Will Have No Impact On Gas Prices

Susan Crabtree | May 13, 2011, 12:33PM

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Senate Democrats have spent the week dismissing GOP claims that ending tax breaks for the oil industry would result in higher prices at the pump. Republicans argue that the big five would simply pass along those added costs to consumers.

"It's Economics 101," a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told TPM earlier this week when asked for an explanation for the assumption.

Democrats brushed aside the claim as baseless, lame excuse for keeping the subsidies intact.

On Friday, the Democrats called in some economic expertise as backup to prove their point. Alan Krueger, an economic and public affairs professor at Princeton University joined Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on a conference call with reporters. According to Krueger's analysis, ending tax breaks for big oil will do nothing to increase prices, or produce such infinitesimally small increases as to have no palpable impact whatsoever.

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Gas Prices

Senate Dems and Oil Execs Face Off Over Tax Breaks

Susan Crabtree | May 12, 2011, 12:15PM

Oil executives testify at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

Executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies received a harsh public flogging for near-record gas prices coupled with high profits for the first quarter of the year at a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday.

Democrats excoriated the executives for rejecting calls to end tax breaks for the industry when they stand to make record profits and gas prices are reaching an all-time high at the pump.

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Gas Prices

Democrats Call Oil Execs On The Carpet For Tax Breaks

Susan Crabtree | May 12, 2011, 6:34AM

The stark differences between Democrats and Republicans on the oil industry and rising gas prices are on vivid display in Congress this week, as Democrats continue to demand an end to tax subsidies for the big-five oil giants while House Republicans pushed through a bill to expand offshore oil drilling.

A group of Senate Democrats gathered at an ExxonMobil station a stone's throw from the Capitol to call on the top five oil producers to voluntarily swear off $25 billion in industry incentives and tax breaks over the next decade.

Against the backdrop of a sign displaying $4.29 for regular unleaded, Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), Bob Menendez (NJ) and Debbie Stabenow (MI), said oil companies have made a record $125 billion profit, and in tough budgetary times, don't need the tax breaks in order to create incentives for more oil and gas exploration.

"It's time for the big oil companies to give up the subsidies and pay their fair share of the deficit reduction," Menendez said.

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Gas Prices

House GOP: Great News On OBL -- Now How About Those Gas Prices?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 3, 2011, 2:13PM

GOP Leaders

The two-week congressional recess that just ended was, it's fair to say, a little less than quiet. Rowdy townhalls focused on the GOP's plan to end Medicare, the release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate, capped off by the killing of Osama bin Laden. So on their first official day back to business on Capitol Hill, House Republican leaders attempted to shift the focus back to where they want it: gas prices.

Or, more succinctly, to shift the focus to the ways they say Democrats and President Obama are making Americans pay more at the pump. En masse, top leaders from the House GOP stood before the mics on Tuesday morning and tried to get the legislative session back on track by focusing on the issue they've said is a winner for them. Drilling, baby, drilling.

And after some talk about the bipartisan victory that is the death of bin Laden, the Republicans went right back to hammering Democrats over the cost of fuel.

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