Bob McCarty Writes

Four months after announcing the formation of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry Labor-Management Committee, the group’s leaders announced today they have written to senior members of Congress to encourage them to support tax policies that will protect and encourage the development of quality U.S. jobs, while at the same time fortifying our nation’s energy and economic security.

In letters sent to Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman and ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Oil and Natural Gas Industry Labor-Management Committee said avoiding tax increases on the oil and natural gas industry is “not only good tax policy – it is good energy policy.”

“As you begin consideration of legislation to address expiring tax provisions and other revenue issues, we urge you to avoid policies that could endanger jobs in the domestic oil and natural gas industry, an industry that is critical to both our energy and economic security,” Mark H. Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department and American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said in the letters they signed on behalf of the committee.

The oil and natural gas industry supports more than 9 million American jobs, including thousands of building and construction jobs that support refinery modifications and expansions, pipeline construction and fabrication of equipment used to produce domestic oil and natural gas.

The committee includes representatives of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, which represents 13 national and international unions; the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, as well as CEOs representing the oil and natural gas companies and API.  To see the complete list of committee’s member organizations, read this post.