House panel debates $18.7 bln US energy tax plan
Date: 07-Apr-03
Country: USA
Author: Tom Doggett
The House bill closely resembles an energy tax package passed by the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. Both panel's tax packages will be folded into each chamber's comprehensive energy bills.
Like the Senate bill, the House legislation extends the tax credit for electricity generated by wind energy to 2006.
The power production tax credit, equal to 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour, also was expanded to cover electricity produced by landfill gas facilities and burning municipal solid waste.
Both the Senate and House bills also would repeal the 4.3-cent federal excise tax on diesel fuel used by trains and barges.
Small oil and natural gas operators also would receive a tax credit to make it more affordable to keep their low-volume wells running when energy prices are low.
A $3 a barrel tax credit would apply when the oil price was below $18, and small producers would be eligible for a 50-cent tax credit when the price for gas was less than $2 per thousand cubic feet.
Noticeably absent from the House bill is financial support for a proposed pipeline to ship Alaskan natural gas to the lower 48 states, setting up a fight with the Senate over the issue.
In its legislation on Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee voted to provide natural gas producers that use the Alaskan pipeline a tax credit of up to 52 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas if the gas price fell below $1.35 per thousand cubic feet. The current U.S. gas price is way above that level at around $5.00.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told reporters last week the Bush administration opposed the tax credits for the Alaskan pipeline.
The Ways and Means panel's energy package will be wrapped into a broad energy bill passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee shortly after midnight last week.
That bill calls for doubling the production of ethanol-blended gasoline, improving the reliability of the U.S. electric grid, implementing President George W. Bush's hydrogen-powered car program and expanding the size of the U.S. emergency oil reserve to 1 billion barrels.
The House bill also will include language cleared by the House Resources Committee on Wednesday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, which is the centerpiece of the Bush administration's national energy plan.
The massive energy bill could go to the House floor as early as next week.
The Senate Energy Committee begins writing its chamber's energy bill next week.
The chairman of the Senate panel, Republican Pete Domenici, said he would not include a provision in the energy bill to allow drilling in ANWR, because the full Senate voted last month against giving oil firms access to the refuge.
Domenici said he wants to finish work on his energy bill and send it to the Senate floor during the first week of May.
