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I listened to the statements made today by the republican leader
about the increase in this fee
that is to be paid in to the oil spill and liability fund.
Now i'd like to ask the chairman of the finance committee,
currently
the fee is eight cents a barrel
and the price of a barrel of oil
as of this morning's Wall Street Journal
seventy one dollars and ninety nine cents a barrel. So this is a
small tiny
fraction.
The current,
[Sen Baucus: current fee]
one tenth of one percent is the best I can calculate it,
that is being paid
by the oil companies
into a fund
so that if there
would be a spill
and the oil company responsible couldn't pay for it,
that they would at least have accumulated enough money to protect the taxpayers,
protect the taxpayers Sen Baucus: That is correct my friend and also the
this fund was created
in the wake of the Exxon-Valdez spill. 0:01:02.810,0:01:04.920 Sen Durbin: Twenty one years ago and I might also add
ask the of chairman of finance committee
it's my understanding that the total value of the current oil spill liability fund is
somewhere in the range of one and a half billion dollars?
Sen Bacus: I... I think that's it it but i can't be certain but it's about that. Sen Durbin: So the effort in this bill is to increase
that barrel tax
paid by oil companies
for this oil spill liability fund want to...
Sen Buacus: forty one cents
Sen Durbin: So forty one cents would represent as I can calculate it
one half of one percent of the current cost of a barrel of oil,
Sen Baucus: but for oil priced at seventy one dollars a barrel. Sen Durbin: Right
and so the argument from the other side
that
even if we accumulate this money and put it into this fund for cleaning up spills
their argument is
you shouldn't it as as additional money being held by the federal government at the
same time, is that correct? Sen Baucus: That is correct.
and if we fail to count it as an additional source of revenue being held by the federal
government
is it not true be subject to a budget point of order?
Which would then requires sixty votes,
which allows the oil companies to find forty one friends on the senate floor, and I think
I know where they'll start looking,
and defeat this effort to create this tax. Sen Baucus: My sense my reading of
the budget says that's correct.
Sen Durbin: Can I also ask the chairman of the finance committee
in this situation where BP is clearly responsible for the mess in the Gulf of Mexico
and has 0:02:31.929,0:02:34.239 at least stated their
responsibility,
in this case
we have a deep pocket defendant
that declared five point six billion dollars
in profits in the first quarter of this year.
But if the next
spill
which results in multi billion dollar damage to the gulf of Mexico or wherever
is caused by a company without deep pockets
this fund is the only place to turn
to protect taxpayers. Sen Baucus: That is correct.
Sen Durbin: And if we fail to increase this tax, and increase
the size of this fund,
it means that the taxpayers we called upon to bail out
other oil companies
that may be responsible for similar damage in the future. Sen Baucus: Now thats precisely
the theory of gulf trust funds in the first place but now
it needs to be the cap, [it] has to be raised. Sen Durbin: So all the protests from the other side of the aisle
about this forty cent
tax on big oil companies
is basically to not only protect the big oil companies
but to put the taxpayers on the hook for another bailout... Sen Baucus: The Senator is Correct. Sen Durbin: ...if we ran into another oil spill
Sen Baucus: That's exactly right
if the company, if the fund is not large enough, that is correct.