For Immediate Release
January 17, 2007
Contact:
Michael Kearns, National Ocean Industries Association, (202) 347-6900
NOIA to Congress: Vote No on H.R. 6
WASHINGTON – The National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) today urged Members of Congress to vote against H.R. 6 in a letter sent to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner.
In the letter, NOIA President Tom Fry explained that, “last summer, Congress made history by recognizing that the future security and economic prosperity of the nation required rethinking the policies that have consistently placed over 80 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off-limits, despite a long record of safe and environmentally-responsible exploration and production. This was an important step toward allowing the United States to actively develop our own resources, rather than continuing our reliance on foreign sources of energy.”
“By enacting H.R. 6, however,” Fry continued, “the Congress is poised to take a costly step backward. The tax provisions that are targeted for repeal by this legislation were put in place specifically to keep our domestic market competitive. In the global marketplace, foreign countries which provide lower operating costs have a competitive advantage.”
Fry added that, “by repealing those provisions through H.R. 6, the Congress would be raising the cost of doing business here at home. This may have the effect of encouraging industry to move its investment to other countries, taking with it tens of billions of dollars in capital and hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
Addressing the specific question of royalty revenues, Fry commented that, “in addition, H.R.6 contains provisions that would penalize companies holding OCS leases issued in 1998 and 1999 for the government’s failure to include optional price thresholds for royalty relief, even as many of those companies have already come to renegotiate those leases of their own volition. Such measures leave the impression that the United States government does not honor its contracts and simply changes the rules as it goes. Today’s Washington Post editorial page sums up the situation accurately: ‘The main problem with the House bill is that hitting up oil companies is a poor substitute for a real energy policy.’”
NOIA encourages all members of the House to vote no on H.R. 6 and to support continued safe, reliable production of domestic resources for American consumers.
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NOIA is the only national trade association representing all segments of the offshore industry with an interest in the exploration and production of energy resources on the nation’s outer continental shelf. The NOIA membership comprises more than 300 companies engaged in business activities ranging from producing to drilling, engineering to marine and air transport, offshore construction to equipment manufacture and supply, telecommunications to finance and insurance.
