Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District
Issues
National Issues & Events
Inslee supports House bill to end Big Oil giveaway
Unless Congress acts, taxpayers will foot $7 billion in oil and gas company profits
14 February 2006
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee joined a coalition of congressional Democrats who announced plans to introduce legislation this week aimed at saving taxpayers billions of dollars now slated for large oil and gas companies already earning record profits.
The bill, "The Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act of 2006," would require oil and gas companies to pay royalties to the federal treasury for drilling on public lands. Without it, taxpayers stand to lose at least $7 billion in the next five years on oil and gas retrieved from federal lands, according to a report in the New York Times today.
"I was guardedly optimistic when the president pledged to end our addiction to oil in his State of the Union address last month," said Inslee, a member of the House Resources Committee and author of comprehensive, energy-independence legislation. "Seeing his budget, with billions in giveaways to Big Oil and only the restoration of funds cut in recent years for clean-energy programs, confirms that his speech was just rhetoric."
Historically, oil and gas companies paid royalties for the right to drill on federal lands. But beginning in 1995 and continuing into just last year, Congress exempted those companies from paying royalties, despite unprecedented high prices and earnings. The Times reported that the exemptions, or "royalty relief," will cost taxpayers at least $7 billion by the year 2012.
Other sponsors of the legislation include U.S. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), George Miller (D-Calif.), Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).