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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (316498)	12/19/2006 5:55:32 PM
From: 10K a day	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1591333

Now he only wants Fat People?

To: Road Walker who wrote (316498)	12/19/2006 5:59:51 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1591333

Sh!t and dam?ation. Expand the military to deal with terrorism? Isn't that just stupid? Exactly how is a larger military going to deal with 12 guys who want to blow up a grocery store? I'm starting to think tejek is right. We need this b@st@rd out of office now, not two years from now. He is singlehandedly ruining this country.

To: Road Walker who wrote (316498)	12/22/2006 9:01:44 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1591333

Incentives on Oil Barely Help U.S., Study Suggests By EDMUND L. ANDREWS Published: December 22, 2006 WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 — The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money. More Politics NewsThe study, which the Interior Department refused to release for more than a year, estimates that current inducements could allow drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico to escape tens of billions of dollars in royalties that they would otherwise pay the government for oil and gas produced in areas that belong to American taxpayers. But the study predicts that the inducements would cause only a tiny increase in production even if they were offered without some of the limitations now in place. It also suggests that the cost of that additional oil could be as much as $80 a barrel, far more than the government would have to pay if it simply bought the oil on its own. “They are giving up a lot of money and not getting much in return,” said Robert A. Speir, a former analyst at the Energy Department who worked on the report. “If they took that money, they could buy a whole lot more oil with it on the open market.” Oil closed Thursday at $62.66 a barrel in regular trading. The Interior Department study, commissioned to analyze the costs of royalty incentives and their effectiveness at increasing energy supplies, was completed in fall 2005. But the study was not released until last month because senior officials said they considered it incomplete. After repeated requests, the department provided a copy to The New York Times with a “note to readers” that said the report did not show the “actual effects” of incentives. Indeed, Interior officials contended that the cost of the incentives would turn out to be far less than the study concluded. They also said that the nation benefits from even small amounts of additional domestic fossil fuels. But industry analysts who compare oil policies around the world said the United States was much more generous to oil companies than most other countries, demanding a smaller share of revenues than others that let private companies drill on public lands and in public waters. In addition, they said, the United States has sweetened some of its incentives in recent years, while dozens of other countries demanded a bigger share of revenue. In the United States, the federal government’s take — royalties as well as corporate taxes — is about 40 percent of revenue from oil and gas produced on federal property, according to Van Meurs Associates, an industry consulting firm that compares the taxes of all oil-producing countries. By contrast, according to Van Meurs, the worldwide average “government take” is about 60 to 65 percent. And that figure, of course, excludes countries that do not allow any private ownership in oil production. Democratic leaders in Congress have already vowed to roll back royalty incentives and tax breaks for drilling companies when they take control of the House and Senate in January. “Royalty relief is the gift that keeps on giving,” said Representative Nick J. Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia, who will become chairman of the House Resources Committee. “It seems painfully obvious that when the government gives tax breaks in the form of royalty relief to Big Oil, the American people are footing the bill.” Supporters of drilling incentives say they make sense for a country that wants to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and whose biggest untapped reserves are in water thousands of feet deep where the cost of drilling a dry hole can hit $100 million. “The amount of exploration investment that a company has to endure to find and develop reserves in the U.S. is far more than in a place like Angola,” said Michael Rodgers, a senior economist at PFC Energy, a consulting firm that analyzes the tax regimes in oil-producing countries. As oil and gas prices have surged in recent years, moreover, many countries have forced companies to give up a bigger share of revenues. Venezuela, Nigeria and Kazakhstan are among several dozen countries that have forced foreign oil companies to pay more money through either higher taxes or bigger equity stakes for the government. 1 2 Next Page » nytimes.com