Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin

10/26/05

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed on Tuesday that oil companies be required to use some of their profits over the next two years to pay for new tax incentives to spur development of cleaner, cheaper energy. A 'strategic energy fund' could generate as much as $20 billion a year and go far in helping the United States reduce its dependence on foreign oil, the New York Democrat told a group of investors, entrepreneurs and service providers interested in alternative energy. … Under Clinton's plan, oil companies would pay an alternative energy development fee. The fee would be taken solely out of 'unanticipated profits from the sky-high oil prices,' she said, and would not be passed on to consumers. Companies that use their profits to expand refining capacity, improve fuel efficiency or invest in alternative energy would not have to pay the fee. … Officials at the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for the oil industry, decried Clinton's proposal, which they said appeared to be calling to reinstate the windfall profits tax imposed on the industry during the 1980s...

http://tinyurl.com/acv39


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp