Tax Break for Gas Drilling May Be Restored

Tax Break for Gas Drilling May Be Restored
Aid Would Promote Production, Industry Says; Environmentalists Decry Move

By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 17, 2003; Page A05


Congress is poised to reinstitute a multimillion-dollar tax break for companies that drill for natural gas in coal beds, even though that business has been booming for a decade without the special help.

Coal state lawmakers and industry lobbyists say the tax cut is needed to encourage growth in domestic energy production. But environmental groups and some key congressional opponents call it an unwarranted giveaway to an industry with close ties to the Bush administration.

The proposal would restore a tax credit for new coal-bed methane wells that Congress ended in 1993, and that was included in the House and Senate versions of a broad energy measure on which Republican negotiators were attempting yesterday to reach final agreement.

A coalition of environmental organizations, western ranchers and Washington-based budget watchdogs opposes the provision, citing boom conditions in such regions as eastern Wyoming's Powder River.

"We're opening about five new wells a day," said Don Likwartz, head of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. "It just depends on gas prices."

The credit for each well could reach $104 a day, or $37,960 a year. It would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue -- and more red ink in the federal budget -- if exploration companies go ahead with plans to drill thousands of new wells.

will uncle sam give me a tax break - maybe same size that Halliburton type companies get?

of an issue, and it looks as if it won't help at all!

(snip) But the move has angered critics, including some leading Republicans. Earlier this year, Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) tried to scrap the entire section of the tax code that provides credits for coal-bed methane operations and the production of other "unconventional fuels."

Nickles, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said the credit is a costly and unnecessary subsidy. (snip)

(snip) "A lot of producers don't need this credit any more. They're doing fine," said Aileen Roder, program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group. (snip)

What a horrendous shame. These R's are utterly without conscience.