Olivia Pulsinelli
Energy should play a major role in any agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff and reduce federal deficits, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO says.
Chamber CEO Tom Donohue spoke to his board members Thursday morning about how Congress can reach such an agreement, Business Journals Washington Bureau Chief Kent Hoover reports.
Donohue called energy “our country’s cash cow” because increasing energy production "will create a larger tax base and higher revenues and direct royalties, all of which will make our deficits lower and reduce debt levels," Hoover reports.
A study from the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy found oil and natural gas production from shale alone generated $62 billion in government revenue this year, Hoover reports. However, Donohue said the federal government needs to improve the permitting process for energy projects.
Environmentalists’ opposition to expanded energy production is one obstacle to using energy as a deficit reduction tool, Hoover reports. Another is the fact that the Congressional Budget Office, which provides the official numbers on how legislation would affect the federal budget, doesn’t have a good way to predict how much additional oil and natural gas could be producedor what the future prices for it would be.