24 July 2015, News Wires – Jeb Bush, a US Republican candidate for the US presidency, said he favours ending government subsidies for all forms of energy, including oil and gas, if he is sent to the White House in 2016.
In a video posted on YouTube by environmental group 350 Action, Bush is seen talking to an environmental activist at an Americans for Prosperity event in the state of New Hampshire.
Bush said if he is elected president, he would look to “phase out, through tax reform, the tax credits for wind, for solar, for the oil and gas sector, for all that stuff”, The Hill newspaper reported.
“The best way to get to the next form of — the next economy, fuel system — is to let markets decide this,” Bush said.
The comments from Bush – the former governor of Florida and the brother of former US president George W Bush (and son of George HW Bush) – ae at odds with typical Republican platforms that are generally supportive of the government support given to oil and gas companies.
However, his stance against subsidising renewable sources such as wind and solar is not likely to sit well with the anti-fossil fuel crowd either.
US President Barack Obama and other Democrats have urged Congress to scale back some $4 billion in annual subsidies granted to the oil and gas industry. Industry groups claim that would make oil and gas production uneconomic.
Bush said he does not want to giver preferential treatment to one energy source over another and that he would look to eliminate the subsidies through an overhaul of the tax code.
“I don’t think we should pick winners and losers,” he said.
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