WASHINGTON --When President Obama releases his final budget request next week, it will include a new $10-per-barrel fee on oil--to be paid by oil companies--to make "smart and strategic investments to create a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system," according to the White House.
The fee would be phased in gradually over five years.
"The president has made clear that taking steps to reduce carbon pollution presents an enormous opportunity to strengthen the economy, drive innovation and create new jobs," said the White House.
The president's budget lays out the plan for building a 21st Century Clean Transportation System funded by the new fee. The president’s plan would increase American investments in clean transportation infrastructure by approximately 50% while reforming the investments the country already makes to help reduce carbon pollution, cut oil consumption and create jobs.
"The new fee on oil will also encourage American innovation and leadership in clean technologies to help reshape our transportation landscape for the decades ahead," the White House said.
According to a White House fact sheet, the plan would:
- Make public investments and create incentives for private-sector innovation to reduce the county's reliance on oil and cut carbon pollution from the transportation sector. The investments in vehicle research and deployment would get clean autonomous vehicles on the road more quickly and more safely, while ensuring electric cars and other alternative vehicles have the technology and the charging infrastructure they need.
- Support hundreds of thousands of good-paying, middle-class jobs each year and increase the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and the productivity of the economy by making it faster, easier and less expensive to move American-made products.
- Expand clean, reliable and safe transportation options like public transit and rail.
- Reward state and local governments for innovations that lead to smarter, cleaner, more resilient transportation systems.
- Accelerate the safe integration of autonomous vehicles, low-carbon technologies and intelligent transportation systems into the nation's infrastructure. The plan invests more than $2 billion per year to launch a new generation of smart, clean vehicles and aircraft by expanding clean transportation research and development and launching pilot deployments of safe and climate-smart autonomous vehicles. It also accelerates the transition to cleaner vehicle fleets in communities around the country, including expanding Diesel Emissions Reduction Act Grant Program funding and supports the creation of regional fueling infrastructure for low-carbon vehicles. The budget also proposes to invest $400 million a year to ensure that new and changing technologies are integrated safely into the transportation system.
- Continue the president’s call to use the one-time revenues from pro-growth business tax reform to fund a temporary near-term surge in investment, while the oil fee would pay for the long-term investments "needed to put the country on the right path for the years ahead."
- Provide assistance to families to relieve energy cost burdens, including a focus on supporting households in the Northeast as they transition from fuel oil for heating to cleaner forms of energy.
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