Manatt Partner Discusses Government’s Proposal to Lower Fossil Fuel Subsidies for ClimateWire
"Proposed $4 billion slash in incentives for fossil fuels"
ClimateWire
February 15, 2011 – ClimateWire quoted Manatt’s Craig A. Moyer, chair of the Land, Environment and Natural Resources division, on the Obama Administration’s budget proposal that trims fossil fuel subsidies by $4 billion. Industry insiders suggest the proposal will raise energy prices and may cost jobs. Moyer agreed, most likely for the small producers, but not for the majors.
Moyer pointed to one subsidy for "stripper wells," small sources that produce less than 10 barrels of oil a day, too small to get the majors’ attention. "If that were to go away," he said, it would hurt "the producers of those stripper wells, which are almost exclusively, in today’s market, smaller oil and gas producers . . . and some of them literally mom-and-pop operators."