WASHINGTON (AP) - The American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for
major oil and natural gas companies, spent nearly $1.3 million in the first
quarter to lobby on fuel economy standards, appropriations bills and other
issues, according to a disclosure form.
The API also lobbied on various pieces of legislation dealing with oil taxes
and fees, renewable fuel standards, climate change, offshore drilling and more,
according to the form posted online April 21 by the House clerk's office.
API spent $4 million to lobby the federal government in 2007.
Senate Democrats in early May called for a windfall profits tax on oil
companies and a rollback of $17 billion in oil industry tax breaks. The
proposal, which also would impose penalties on price gouging and calls for
stopping deliveries into the government's emergency oil reserve, is strongly
opposed by Republicans and would almost certainly prompt a veto by President
Bush.
Elsewhere, new cars and trucks will need to meet a fleet average of 31.6
miles per gallon by 2015, according to a proposal last month from the Bush
administration. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters set a schedule that was
more aggressive than the auto industry expected in response to a new law that
requires new cars and trucks, taken as a collective average, to meet 35 mpg by
2020.
Besides Congress, API lobbied the White House, Environmental Protection
Agency, Energy Department and others in the first three months of the year.
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