Senate Republicans Join Scott in Responding to Unprecedented Biden Energy Tax Hike

US Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) was joined by a delegation of Senate Republicans this week in an effort to oppose President Joe Biden’s administration’s announced taxation plans for energy producers. 

On March 11, 2024, the US Treasury Department unveiled its General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2025 Revenue Proposals (Green Book). 

The Green Book outlines the Biden administration’s goals regarding tax regulatory updates and revisions. 

According to Senator Scott’s office, the Green Book proposes  $110 billion in target tax increases on the production of oil, gas, and coal.

Overall, the taxation plan would amount to nearly $5 trillion in individual and corporate tax hikes in 2025. 

Conservative Senators claimed the proposal would undermine American laborers while gutting domestic energy production. 

In a letter co-authored by Scott and several dozen other conservative Senators, the lawmakers claimed Biden’s tax proposals would “threaten American families’ access to affordable and reliable energy.”

The letter also underscores how undermining domestic energy production will bolster American adversaries’ control over the international energy market. 

Gutting American energy, reads the letter, would ignore how “our allies and partners across the globe are asking for reliable American energy resources to escape their dependence on Russian energy.” 

Recently, the Biden administration also announced final national pollution standards for vehicle models years 2027 through 2032 and beyond.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined the pollution standards as the “strongest-ever pollution standards for cars,” with a special aim of spurring electronic vehicle (EV) production.  

American industry leaders criticized the EPA’s announcement. 

 American Petroleum Institute (API) President and CEO Mike Sommers and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) President and CEO Chet Thompson opposed the new standards. 

“This regulation will make new gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for most Americans. For them, this wildly unpopular policy is going to feel and function like a ban,” said the CEOs.  

According to the API,  gas cars accounted for 92% of U.S. vehicle sales while less than 8% were electric.

Yet, if Biden's new standards are enforced, EVs would have to account for the majority of new car sales by 2030.