Consumers will suffer
In response to Gene Karpinski’s letter regarding Congressman Todd Platts’ vote for the U.S. House’s energy bill: Yes, Representative Platts did vote in favor of the development of clean energy and renewable sources for electricity, but he doesn’t support removing oil and gas industry tax breaks. Rep. Platts voted against the $16 billion tax package on U.S. oil and gas companies.
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It’s one thing to vote in principle for some of the clean energy items of the House Bill, but it’s another to make them a reality. This cannot be accomplished by removing oil and gas tax breaks to subsidize alternatives. Rep. Platts, like everyone else, is for alternative energy, but he realizes that alternative fuels will not be widely available for use tomorrow, next year, or even in ten years.
Throwing lots of money at the alternative fuels industry makes it falsely appear they are affordable, however; in a few years when prices revert to what they would be without the subsidies, the true cost of this measure will be seen. By subsidizing in the short term, in the long term we’ll see higher gas prices than if we hadn’t raised gas and oil taxes. New taxes also make our domestic producers less competitive with foreign oil suppliers.
American consumers will be the ones to suffer from the removal of tax breaks and new taxes on the U.S. oil and gas business. We should really be thanking Rep. Platts for opposing this measure.
Thom Madland
Etters
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