Democratic President Joe Biden has been accused by Republican Senator John Barrasso of seeking to provide the renewable energy industry “lavish subsidies.”
On Fox News first: The Senate’s third-ranking Republican says the Biden administration is “throwing away” the U.S. energy sector by proposing to increase taxes on fossil fuels and provide “lavish subsidies” to green energy projects.
“The United States is lucky to have access to many energy sources. Instead of losing a major economic and geopolitical edge, the United States has to concentrate on fostering American energy and innovation “John Barrasso (R-Wyo. ), chairman of the Republican conference in the Senate, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Thursday.
Biden’s proposed budget for FY2024 has “more than a dozen…energy tax items in the crosshairs of the administration’s tax proposal,” according to a statement by Senator John Barrasso.
The White House claims that $31 billion in “special tax treatment for oil and gas firm investments, and other fossil fuel tax benefits,” will be eliminated under the president’s proposed budget. Even if it’s less than the $45 billion in fossil fuel subsidies Obama proposed ending in his previous budget, Republicans are nevertheless alarmed by this number.
“The government has chosen to raise energy taxes rather than work to increase domestic energy output. The government has redoubled its efforts to use the tax system as a weapon against domestic energy providers “Authored by Barrasso.
Renewable energy is a priority in President Biden’s proposed budget. The President has proposed allocating $300 million to retrofit public housing to make it more climate-resilient and reduce energy use. The White House has released a fact sheet boasting of a $4.5 billion investment “in sustainable energy across America.”
On Thursday, Barrasso and 21 other Republican senators wrote to President Joe Biden saying that Biden’s “hostility” against fossil fuels will lead to higher prices for Americans and make it harder for U.S. partners to wean themselves off of Russian oil and gas.
High energy costs are one of several difficulties that working families and small companies are experiencing today, he stated. Concurrently, “our allies and partners throughout the globe are calling for reliable American energy supplies to escape their dependency on Russian energy and to deal with the energy crisis.”
The letter warned that “these crushing tax ideas, coupled with the administration’s heavy-handed regulations and mandates,” would put at risk the ability of American families to obtain cheap and dependable energy while also providing our adversaries an advantage in global energy markets.
Just before Yellen was scheduled to defend Biden’s budget proposal in front of the Senate Finance Committee, the letter was sent to her.
