What is disturbing is that the tax incentives given to the oil and gas companies don't work. A New York Times article from 2006 details an report produced by the Department of the Interior that found the incentives would only marginally increase production of oil and gas over the next 40 years or so - about 300 million barrels (or about 1 percent) more over that time than if the incentives did not exist. Increases in gas production would be even less - closer to half of one percent. But the costs are enormous - between $40 and $50 billion less in royalty payments to the government for drilling on public land. And as we've noted before (here and here) the Department of the Interior has already screwed up collecting the royalties it should receive under this program, allowing oil and gas companies to keep tens of billions of dollars that should have been put to public use - not private profit.

And those profits are still rolling in. Most large energy companies who benefit from this tax break are not hard up for cash to invest in drilling and expansion of production, particularly oil companies. ExxonMobil made over $40 billion in profit in 2007 - the most ever by a U.S. company. Do we really need to be mitigating the risk for oil exploration for a company so flush with cash that is almost definitely going to explore anyway? Is that the best use of federal resources that belong to us all?

The president's veto threat also brings into question his often-stated goal that the federal government should not spend public dollars on program that don't show results. This particular program has shown, based on the government's own studies, to be wasteful and unsuccessful. Why then is Mr. Bush threatening to veto a bill ending the program and shifting those resources to generating production of reneweable energy? (Btw, the oil and gas industry contributed $2,596,725 to the president's 2004 campaign in total. Hmmm...)

Image by Flickr user xitus used under a Creative Commons license