As you are well aware, President Obama released his FY 2010 Budget, entitled A New Era of Responsibility Renewing America’s Promise. The budget provides for a $30 plus billion-dollar tax increase on the nation’s oil and natural gas producers, designed to help pay for alternative energy projects. In the proposed budget, President Obama strips from the oil and gas industry incentives that have been the “holy grail” of the industry for years, incentives that are critical in a high-risk investment industry.

Louisiana is the “Energy State” of these United States. Twenty-five percent of the oil and twenty-five percent of the natural gas that fuels our nation flows through the vast oil and gas infrastructure of our state. Fifty percent of the fuels that drive the engines of our country flow through and from the state of Louisiana. Our nation’s energy security is greatly dependent on the well being of Louisiana’s oil and gas industry.

Should Congress pass President Obama’s budget proposals on oil and gas, our nation’s energy security will be at great risk. Our nation’s oil and gas industry is not made up of the five or so major integrated oil companies, but of several thousand independent oil and natural gas producers. It is these American oil and gas companies that drill and produce the vast majority of oil and natural gas produced in the United States.

President Obama’s budget proposals will strip from the American independent oil and gas producer the economic incentives that provide the investment capital that is needed to explore and produce oil and gas for our country. Without the economic investment incentives, exploration and production of oil and natural gas, as we know it, will drastically decline. Trillions of dollars will be lost, tens of thousands of jobs will be lost and our nation’s energy security will be severally threatened.

Louisiana is the heartbeat of our nation’s energy infrastructure; President Obama’s budget proposals will put that infrastructure at great risk. Please work to defeat or amend President Obama’s budget. Our Nation and the State of Louisiana are counting on you.