Fact Check: Dick Cheney's Energy Bill Included Billions In Giveaways To Oil Companies
4/25/2008 6:24:29 PM

The AP counters the fact that Dick Cheney's 2005 energy bill contained "billions in dollars in giveaways to the oil companies" with the following:

The 2005 energy bill actually raised taxes on the oil and gas industry by about 300 million over 11 years, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Actually, The giveaways to the oil industry are not limited to tax breaks. They also include provisions like royalty relief that are worth billions. And many of the tax "increases" are simply extensions of exiting taxes that do not impose any additional burden on oil companies.

1. About half of giveaways were not tax provisions. For instance, the oil companies received billions in royalty waivers. For example:

Sections 344-345
Waives royalty payments for drilling for some natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Section 346
Waives royalty payments for drilling in offshore Alaska.

Sections 353-4
Waives royalty payments for gas hydrate extraction on the Outer Continental Shelf and public land in Alaska.

Section 383
Allows oil companies drilling in federal land off the coast of a particular state to pay the state 44 cents of every dollar it would have paid to the federal government for the privilege of drilling on federal land.

For more details see this Public Citizen Report.

2. Many of the tax "increases" are really extensions of existing tax provisions and did not impose any additional burden on oil companies. The "increases" cited by the CRS report are reinstatements or extensions of petroleum excise taxes levied for the purpose of funding environmental cleanup programs to deal with oil spills and leaking underground storage tanks. They are existing taxes that would have almost certainly been extended regardless. These kinds of extensions do not offset new tax breaks for activities like drilling.

The Fact Hub.