Rep. Markey to Speaker Boehner on Oil Price Reduction Bill

WASHINGTON (April 27, 2011) – Responding to increasing gas prices, and reports that Republicans will bring bills to the floor next week that won’t help consumers in the short-term at the pump, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today called on Speaker John Boehner to bring a legislative package to a House vote next week that would decrease prices in the short term, increase drilling safety, and end oil company tax breaks and practices that hold hostage American oil underneath taxpayer owned lands.

The four suggested bills Rep. Markey has introduced or co-introduced are:

1. The Enhanced SPR Act (H.R. 1017), which would help consumers at the pump by deploying a small amount of our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and strengthen the reserves by later adding refined petroleum product like gasoline when prices subside.
2. The USE IT Act (H.R. 927), would impose a fee on oil companies to pressure them to begin drilling on the tens of millions of acres of public land where we know there is oil and they are not producing.
3. The End Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act (H.R. 601), introduced with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), would repeal the billions in tax breaks for the largest oil companies.
4. The Implementing the Recommendations of the BP Oil Spill Commission Act (H.R. 501), to increase safety in the offshore oil industry.

“These four bills would actually provide relief this summer to American consumers, improve the safety of offshore drilling and ensure that oil companies stop holding hostage billions of barrels of American oil, and end the billions of dollars per year in tax subsidies currently given to Big Oil companies,” writes Rep. Markey, who is the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “I therefore urge you to bring these bills to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote immediately.”

Currently, House Republicans plan to bring a trio of drilling bills to the floor that would not decrease prices in the short-term, do little in the long-term, and reduce safety for workers and the environment.

Rep. Markey also pushes a long-term strategy of creating clean energy jobs and products here in America. “I urge you to reject any attempts to cut funding for renewable energy technologies that can create jobs here in America and lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” writes Rep. Markey. “The Republican budget proposes to reduce investment in alternative energy technologies by 90 percent at the same time that it maintains tax breaks and free drilling for Big Oil. We must invest in the clean energy jobs that will power our recovery and end OPEC’s stranglehold on our economy.”