Carlton Carroll | 202.682.8114 | carrollc@api.org
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2011 – API President and CEO Jack Gerard made the following statement after Senate passage of the emergency bill to raise the debt ceiling:
“We commend the budget negotiators for recognizing that raising taxes on the oil and gas industry is not the right approach for addressing our debt. More investment in our economy, not more taxes, is the key to generating more jobs and producing more revenue for the government.
“America’s oil and natural gas industry makes tremendous investments in our economy and can do more. Just last year, the industry directly contributed more than $470 billion to the U.S. economy in spending on new projects, wages and dividends – or over half the cost of the government stimulus paid for by American taxpayers in the year before.
“More taxes would slow down this critical engine of growth, jeopardizing the 9.2 million U.S. jobs our industry supports and the $86 million a day in taxes, royalties and other payments it delivers to our government. We need policies that promote jobs and government revenue through more private investment in developing America’s own resources – not more taxes.”
API represents more than 470 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports more than 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers $86 million in revenue to our government every day, and, since 2000, has invested nearly $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.