• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Bush Rejects Tax on Oil Companies' Profits

Posted on: Friday, 28 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By JENNIFER LOVEN

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Friday rejected calls in Congress for a tax on oil company profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent windfalls in finding and producing more energy.

"The temptation in Washington is to tax everything," Bush said in an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden. Rather than for the government to reap the benefit from oil company profits driven by the recent surge in global oil prices, he said, "The answer is for there to be strong re-investment."

"These oil prices are a wakeup call," Bush said. "We're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil."

With gasoline topping $3 a gallon in some areas, Bush said energy companies should use their increased cash flows to build more natural gas pipeline, expand refineries, explore "in environmentally friendly ways," and invest in renewable sources of energy.

"That's what the American people expect. They also expect to be treated fairly at the pump," he said.

In a hastily arranged news conference to tout strong economic growth figures, Bush also criticized efforts to sing the national anthem in Spanish. "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English," he said.

-Rejected calls in Congress to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The lessons of Katrina are important. We've learned a lot here at the federal level," Bush said. "We're much more ready this time than we were the last time."

-Criticized efforts by the Sudanese government to thwart efforts by the U.N. and other multinational organizations to take a firmer control of fighting atrocities in the Darfur region. "My message to them is we expect there to be full compliance with the international desire for there to be peace in the Darfur region," he said.

- Sidestepped a question on whether recent staff changes at the White House could help reverse his presidency's slump in the polls. "I think it's necessary to continue doing -- achieving results for the American people. We've got big challenges for this country, and I've got a strategy to deal with them," he said.

- Said "the world is united and concerned" about Iran's suspected desire to build nuclear weapons and that he will work with other countries to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

-Endorsed yet again a temporary worker program as a way to enforce border security.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

More News in this Category