President Obama proposes new oil fee

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In his final budget to Congress, President Obama proposed a new $10 per barrel fee on oil to fund sustainable transportation infrastructure. In his first budget President Obama proposed a price on all carbon which was subsequently dropped out of future budgets.

Friends of the Earth Climate and Energy Campaigner Lukas Ross issued the following statement in response:

By all means, we should build a sustainable transportation system and Big Oil should foot the bill. Oil companies have profited for generations from government-funded roads as well as from billions of dollars of tax breaks every year. Putting a fee on oil and other dirty fuels is exactly the mechanism we need to transition the U.S. towards a new energy economy and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The momentum to keep fossil fuels in the ground is growing, and Congress ignores forward-thinking solutions like this at its own risk.

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Expert contact: Lukas Ross, (202) 222-0724, [email protected]
Communications contact: Kate Colwell, (202) 222-0744, [email protected]