Bipartisan Trio Says Tax Oil to Fund U.S. Infrastructure

[Elmore Furth]

This will really piss off the GOP billionaire caucus.

By REUTERS
Published: July 11, 2011 at 3:30 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three big guns from U.S. politics are offering a twist on the chronic funding shortage for the country's infrastructure: taxing oil directly.

Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, said levying a tax on oil would fund transportation projects and drive down oil dependence.

"We, three leaders representing the U.S. political spectrum, recommend that a solvent transportation program be ensured through the stable pricing of oil and petroleum products as the best immediate strategy," they wrote in a report released on Monday.

Under the proposal released on Monday, the U.S. government would charge a 5 percent ad valorem tax on oil upstream, either at production or importation, when world oil prices rise. It would tax gasoline and diesel at the retail level when oil prices fall.


Bipartisan Trio Says Tax Oil to Fund U.S. Infrastructure