Wyden to to go after Big Oil again

The Oregonian's Jeff Kosseff is reporting that Ron Wyden plans to attack oil industrysubsidies. He'll do it next week, when the Senate debates an expansion of off-shore oil drilling (using Gulf Coast hurricane relief as a pretext.)

On Wednesday night, Wyden vowed to continue his fight during the offshore drilling debate....

"It will be very difficult to explain to the American public how Congress can be proposing to allow additional billions of dollars of royalty money to be given away before it first puts a stop to what is already going out the door," Wyden said on the Senate floor.

In April, Wyden spoke on the Senate floor for more than four hours in an attempt to reduce the corporate subsidies. Particularly as oil company profits and gasoline prices have reached record highs this year, Wyden argues, the government should have the authority to collect billions in royalties.

"The existing oil royalty giveaways have grown over the years to become the biggest oil subsidy of all and one of the largest boondoggles that wastes taxpayer money of any federal program," Wyden said.

Discuss.

July 21, 2006 Posted in in the news 2006.