The Coming Energy Burden
Republicans and Democrats, Oil Companies and Environmentalist All for Gas Tax Increase
WASHINGTON - Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline, as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress.
The tax, which according to early estimates would be in the range of 15 cents a gallon, was conceived with the input of several oil companies, including Shell, BP and Conoco Phillips, and is being championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to write a climate bill that moderate Republicans could support. Along those lines, the bill will also include an expansion of offshore oil drilling and major new incentives for nuclear power plant construction.
Environmental groups have long advocated gasoline taxes to reduce fossil fuel consumption; the oil industry has spent heavily in recent years to fight taxes that the industry says would harm consumers.
In this case, though, several oil companies are floating the tax plan because it figures to cost them far less than other climate proposals, including a climate bill the House passed last year.
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*Oil May Rise as US Deliberately Supplies Drop
*Obama’s Green Economy: Made in China
*Alex Jones:Running on empty
earlier:
Destruction of Videotapes Documented in CIA E-mail
Email shows CIA head signed off on destroying tapes showing torturing of detainees
WASHINGTON – Internal CIA e-mails show the former agency head, Porter Goss, agreed with a top aide's 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of the harsh interrogation of a terror suspect, a controversial action that remains the focus of an FBI investigation.
The documents show that, despite Goss' apparent agreement, CIA officials almost immediately began worrying they'd done something wrong. The e-mails also indicate that President George W. Bush's White House counsel, Harriet Miers, hadn't been informed of the tapes' destruction and was "livid" to find out later.
The videos showed CIA interrogators using waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that's widely considered torture, on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah. The videos showed that interrogators did not follow the waterboarding procedures authorized by the Bush administration, the documents indicate.
Jose Rodriguez, the agency's top clandestine officer, worried the 92 tapes would be "devastating" to the CIA if they ever surfaced, the documents show. He approved the destruction of the tapes.
Rodriguez told Goss and others he "felt it was extremely important to destroy the tapes and that if there was any heat, he would take it," according to a November 2005 e-mail.
Goss, according to the e-mail, laughed and said he'd be the one to take the heat.
The e-mail then states: "PG, however, agreed with the decision."
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