Elizabeth Warren presses oil companies on lobbying tax interruptions for the Senate bill | Oil and gas companies

Democratic legislators led by the Senator of Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, insist two energy companies about their efforts to “win a tax escape of $ 1.1 billion” in the so-called “big and beautiful bill” of Donald Trump.

The proposed exemption, which the Senate republicans inserted in their version of the mega-factor of reconciliation this month, would provide fossil fuel companies to pay a tax codified by Biden in 2022.

“It is an insult for workers to give the oil companies a massive tax document while reducing health care and increasing energy prices for millions of families,” said Warren, who was an ardent defender of the tax, at the Guardian.

Sacred in the law on inflation reduction, the minimum alternative tax of companies (CAMT) obliges companies with adjusted profits of more than $ 1 billion to pay at least 15% of the profits they bring to their shareholders, called “book benefits”, in taxes. The Senate financing committee’s proposal would protect the interior foreors from this tax by allowing companies to deduct certain drilling costs when they calculate their income – a change that would allow certain companies to pay zero dollar in federal taxes.

Winning tax setting was a major priority for the interest of fossil fuels this year. The major oil of Conocophillips and the Denver Ovintiv oil company directly pressure for change, according to federal disclosure.

Thursday morning, Warren, the senator of Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and the head of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, sent letters to Conocophillips and Ovintiv pressing on their role in the formation of Camt.

“Your business lobbying explicitly Prioritize this document, ”read the letters, which were shared exclusively with The Guardian.

The two companies could “benefit enormously from this provision”, read the letters, which are addressed to the CEO of Conocophillips, Ryan Lance, and to the CEO of Ovintiv, Brendan McCracken, respectively.

The Guardian contacted Conocophillips and Ovintiv to comment.

In their missives, the senators asked how much each company had spent to lobby for the layout and will spend this year, how everyone has donated elected officials pleading for fossil fuel tax reductions, and how many tax reductions would see that each company would see if the provision is finalized, asking for answers before July 9.

“The justification for the CAMT was simple: for too long, massive companies took advantage of the gaps in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share, sometimes paying no federal tax despite billions of profits,” the signatories wrote.

The proposed change, notes the letters, closely resembles a bill presented by the Senator of Oklahoma James Lankford this year, which would allow companies to subtract the “intangible drilling and development costs” from their Camt income calculations.

Lankford accepted nearly $ 500,000 in donations from the fossil fuels between 2019 and 2024, making it its main source of industry financing. The Guardian contacted the senator to comment.

The deductions for intangible drilling costs – referring to the costs incurred before drilling, as for labor and equipment – have been on books since 1913, which makes it the oldest and largest subsidy of American fossil fuels, according to a report on the Lankford proposal.

“Big Oil now wants this deduction applies not only to the purposes of their taxable income, but also for the purposes of income from the book”, according to the letters. “In other words, if it was promulgated, this provision would reduce, or even eliminate tax obligations for oil and gas companies under CAMT, which allows some to pay any federal income tax.”

Other energy -related provisions in the reconciliation bill would eliminate incentives for the manufacture of clean energy and energy efficiency, which would result in the increase in public service bills and the loss of jobs. This makes the “particularly insulting” tax relief proposal, explains the letter, which has been sent as temperatures increased through a large part of the United States.

“The Americans deserve to know if the big oil has paid for these Republicans at the Congress to carve out tax alleviations just for them,” said Warren.

As written, the reconciliation bill would also endanger energy security by reducing the growth of renewable energies, Schumer told Guardian.

“The Republicans plan is a complete capitulation of the great oil to the detriment of clean energy and portfolios of American families,” said Schumer. “Republicans prefer to kill more than 800,000 well -remunerated jobs and send soil energy costs than to resist their large billionaire oil friends.”