[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 3 (Thursday, January 8, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E34-E35]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TAR SANDS TAX LOOPHOLE ELIMINATION ACT

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 8, 2015

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today, along with twelve of my 
colleagues, I am reintroducing the Tar Sands Tax Loophole Elimination 
Act. This bill will ensure that oil companies can no longer sidestep 
paying their fair share into the dedicated trust fund created so that, 
in the event of an oil spill, there are resources immediately available 
for cleanup. If enacted, the legislation would generate approximately 
$665 million over ten years.
  The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, authorized in 1990, ensures we 
have funding available to pay for the immediate costs of cleaning up 
oil spills. It is funded by an eight cent per barrel excise tax on 
crude oil and petroleum products. In 2011, however, the Internal 
Revenue Service (IRS) issued a misguided decision stating that oil 
derived from tar sands, the same type that will flow through the 
Keystone XL Pipeline if approved, is not considered crude oil and is 
therefore currently exempt from the tax that pays into the Fund.

[[Page E35]]

  In 2013, we imported approximately 925 million barrels of crude oil 
from Canada, with over 400 million of these barrels coming from tar 
sands and not subject to the tax that goes into the cleanup fund. This 
is a significant liability, without any investment being made for if 
and when there is a tar sands spill.
  Oil that comes from tar sands is a thick, sticky form of crude oil 
that can be more difficult and costly to clean up than other types of 
crude. In 2010, for example, a pipeline owned and operated by a 
Canadian company, Enbridge, spilled more than 850,000 gallons of tar 
sands oil into a waterway that flows into the Kalamazoo River in 
Michigan. That has been one of the largest and costliest pipeline 
spills in American history, with the price tag now at $1.2 billion 
dollars.
  I do not support the development of tar sands--doing so is 
environmentally destructive and carbon-intensive. Moreover, we should 
not keep in place a loophole that lets big oil companies off the hook 
for cleaning up their tar sands spills.
  The Tar Sands Tax Loophole Elimination Act would add oil derived from 
tar sands and oil shale to the definition of crude oil, closing the 
current loophole and ensuring that oil companies pay into the fund.
  Oil companies already get billions of dollars in taxpayer-based 
subsidies, and this bill will ensure they will not be given an 
additional free ride on tar sands and any future oil shale development.

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