Press Release

CONSUMERS, NOT OIL INDUSTRY, FEEL PAIN OF $4.01 GAS
Tax on industry’s enormous profits could help make alternatives available

NASHVILLE – As gasoline hit $4.01 a gallon in Tennessee this week, U.S. Senate candidate Mike Padgett said the oil industry must be held accountable.

“Tennesseans are struggling to buy groceries and put enough gas in the car to get to work or to the doctor’s office. When are the oil industry executives going to start feeling the pain?” Padgett said Thursday.

“And to add insult to injury – literally – gas costs about 50 cents a liter in Iraq, where they are sitting on the second largest oil reserve on the planet. We may never have access to that oil or to gasoline that cheap.”

As part of his Energy 2.0 plan, Padgett has called for a windfall profit tax on the oil industry as a way to help break U.S. dependence on expensive foreign oil. Proceeds would go to a trust fund for developing alternative fuels and other sources of energy. Padgett also would eliminate the $17 billion in tax breaks given to Big Oil. (For details, visit www.votepadgett.com/issues/energy20.)

“We won’t stop this sprint toward $10-a-gallon gas until our leaders get serious about making alternative fuels available and affordable to the American consumer,” Padgett said. “It is going to take an about-face in the way tax law deals with the oil industry.

“Instead of rewarding Big Oil with the kind of tax breaks that Senator Alexander has guarded for them, we should be rewarding the innovators who will get us out of this trap.

“And innovation means jobs. A thriving alternative energy industry could bring opportunities to Tennessee counties that have lost good-paying manufacturing jobs. Money for developing agricultural fuel sources could put struggling Tennessee farmers back in business.

“Tennesseans don’t currently have a U.S. senator who thinks this way, but they will if they’ll stand with me. My top priority won’t be Big Oil. It will be the working families of Tennessee.”

William "Mike" Padgett is former Knox County Clerk and small business owner. He and Patty, his wife of 37 years, have three grown children, Matt, Mark and Sara Beth

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