The
Rational Argumentator
A Formula for Failure
Meanwhile, oil producers in
Recently, Barry Russell, the president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, released a statement in which he said, “President Obama delivered a devastating blow to the American oil and natural gas industry by proposing an astonishing $30 billion tax increase (as part of his FY 2010 budget) on American energy producers, most of whom are small businesses.”
“Ninety percent of the oil and natural gas wells developed in the
In a world where more oil and natural gas are required by developing nations such as
(1) A repeal of expensing of intangible drilling costs; a repeal of percentage depletion that allows for the depreciation of existing small, barely economic wells;
(2) A repeal of the marginal well tax credit, a safety net for wells that produce small amounts of oil and gas that, collectively, supply almost 20% of the nation’s oil and 12% of its gas;
(3) A repeal of the enhanced oil recovery credit that allows industry to get more energy from wells that are depleted instead of drilling new wells;
(4) Increases in the geological and geophysical amortization costs involving the high cost of doing seismic and other high-tech surveys;
(5) An excise tax on
(6) And a repeal of the manufacturing tax deduction, a provision given to every other American manufacturer and which allows independent oil and natural gas producers to put more money into new energy projects.
It is a plan to destroy the American oil and natural gas industry, and with it the nation’s economy.
Right now, however, the Obama administration has installed an “energy team” that is completely opposed to the development of any energy resources in
Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, is on record saying, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in
Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, the agency that administers energy leasing on federal lands and most offshore areas, has a long record of opposition to such leasing of oil, natural gas, and coal exploration and extraction. He has already nullified recently awarded leases for natural gas drilling in federal land in
Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, outdoes Al Gore with predictions of global warming calamities. Back in the 1970s he was worrying whether mankind would survive the “threat of making the planet too cold.”
Meanwhile, Wall Street is watching investment drop like a stone as Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, testifies that
This attack on energy companies and access to energy resources in
Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Every week, he posts a column on the website of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.
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Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.