Ohio’s Sen. Brown floats oil tax-break repeal plan

“It’s bad enough that Ohioans have to pay more than $4.00 a gallon at the gas pump because the price of crude oil rises due to price fixing by OPEC,” Brown said in a statement.

“They shouldn’t need to subsidize the oil industry through the tax code as well. Big Oil is reaping big profits while working- and middle-class Ohioans struggle to make ends meet,” he said.

The bill targets the companies’ ability to claim a lucrative deduction based on manufacturing and production income and quickly write-off certain drilling costs, among other provisions.

But the oil industry is striking back at efforts to raise taxes on producers. Industry officials say that stripping tax breaks would slow domestic energy projects.

“What you are saying is we are going to discourage the very companies we need to rely on to develop America’s oil and natural gas resources,” American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said in a weekend broadcast of the C-SPAN program “Newsmakers.”