Baucus will ‘very seriously’ consider Obama push to repeal oil tax breaks

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Thursday declined to take a position on President Barack Obama’s push to repeal $36.5 billion over a decade in oil-and-gas industry tax breaks.

“We will take all those proposals very seriously when we have subsequent tax legislation and subsequent energy legislation,” Baucus said in the Capitol when asked about the proposal in the fiscal 2011 White House budget plan.

Obama proposed repealing over $30 billion in industry incentives last year, but Congress did not act on the plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) backs the tax break repeals. But the plan faces heavy resistance from the oil industry, many Republicans and some Democrats from oil- and gas-producing states.