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Democrats seek to boost taxes on oil companies
Associated Press
Democrats in Congress are relying on record oil prices and a surge in gasoline costs to make another attempt at imposing $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies.
… the House scheduled a vote on the tax measure for late Wednesday afternoon.
The House bill, similar to one that failed to win Senate approval last fall, would roll back two lucrative tax breaks for the largest U.S. oil companies, and use the money for tax incentives to support wind, solar and biofuel industries as well as energy efficiency programs
(27 February 2008)
US: Won’t Be Easy to Collect $31B
US Official Estimates $31 Billion at Stake in Kerr-McGee Case
Associated Press
A U.S. Interior Department official said Tuesday that the government may have a hard time collecting as much as $31 billion in royalty payments for leases issued in the late 1990s unless a court decision that rejected the government’s right to the payments is reversed.
The warning from Assistant Secretary Stephen Allred came at a hearing aimed at keeping visibility on disputed royalty payments for deepwater drilling. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been pressing oil companies to make the payments, and promised to try again with legislation that would ban oil companies from participating in sales of new leases unless they pay royalties on a set of leases issued in 1998 and 1999.
“I intend to persevere,” said Feinstein, who the chairwoman of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. “This is one of the largest sources of revenue for the federal government at a time when all these programs are really stressed for dollars.”
(26 February 2008)
FutureGen CEO interview
Scott Nance, Energy Policy TV
Michael Mudd is Chief Executive Officer of FutureGen. He is interviewed about FutureGen, a planned near-zero-emission coal-fired power plant and the Department of Energy’s recently announced restructuring of that project.
(26 February 2008)
Amid Election, Coal Takes the Offensive
Matthew Brown and Matt Gouras, Associated Press
Facing a bruising fight over climate change, the coal industry is on the political offensive this election year to ensure that no matter who wins in November, so does coal.
Billions of dollars in corporate profits are at stake for the companies that mine, ship and burn the nation’s most abundant domestic fuel.
(27 February 2008)
The Problem With Biofuels
More proof that there are no easy solutions to climate change
Editorial, Washington Post
S THE United States searches for alternative ways to feed its addiction to petroleum, ethanol and other biofuels derived from organic material have been considered a miracle motor vehicle elixir. The energy bill signed by President Bush in December mandates that at least 36 billion gallons of biofuels a year be used by 2020. Yet separate studies released this month by Princeton University and the Nature Conservancy reveal that biofuels are not a silver bullet in the battle against global warming. In fact, they could make things worse.
Corn and sugar cane are common sources of ethanol. Aside from emitting fewer greenhouse gases than coal or oil when burned as fuel, these biofuel crops remove carbon from the atmosphere while they are growing — thus making them nearly carbon-neutral. But the studies show that ethanol may be even more dangerous for the environment than fossil fuels are. As the Princeton study points out, clearing previously untouched land to grow biofuel crops releases long-sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. While planting corn and sugar cane in already tilled land is fine, a problem arises when farmers churn up new land to grow more fuel or the food and feed displaced by biofuel crops.
…It all adds up to another example that there is no quick, cheap and easy way to confront the menace of global warming.
(27 February 2008)
A more detailed piece by Eric de Place at Sightline, also titled The Problem With Biofuels.
