New Democrat “Energy” Plan Looks To Raise Your Energy Costs

26 Jul, 2010 by William Teach

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Why does it seem that every s0-called energy bill actually is about restrictions and taxes, but barely about increase energy production and means? Witness

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil as early as Monday a slimmed-down energy bill seeking to make offshore drilling safer and convert trucks to run on domestic natural gas.

The full Senate could begin consideration of Reid’s bill on Tuesday and Democrats would like to pass it by the early part of the following week.

Certainly, there are provisions for increasing energy production, right?

The narrowed-down bill would hold BP Plc accountable for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and seek to prevent similar disasters, Reid said last week.

We need an energy bill for that?

It will very likely include provisions to force companies to dole out more money to cover the costs of oil spills. The liability cap, which is currently $75 million, will likely be raised to $10 billion or more. One Senate committee passed a bill last month to lift all caps on liabilities.

Provisions to increase nuclear, solar, wind, and water power, among others, certainly shows up somewhere, right?

Analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners LLC, said he expects the energy efficiency measure known as Home Star to include $5 billion in incentives for plugging window leaks and insulating attics.

Not yet.

To pay for these measures, lawmakers may consider raising taxes on the oil and gas industry.

“One possibility would be to raise the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax from 8 cents per barrel to 49 cents per barrel, which would raise approximately $18 billion,” said analyst Whitney Stanco of the Washington Research Group.

And that is the ending. We may have to wait for the full bill to see the details, yet, one would think Reuters, or some other news story, would include something about increasing energy production. Now, the increase in taxes may just be conjecture, but, that is an interesting and specific bit of guesswork. Guess who would pay for that 6x increase?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach