Rep. Boren: Obama Risks Democrats’ Oil Jobs

Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren says President Barack Obama is threatening thousands of Democrats' jobs by calling for an end to tax breaks for oil companies. Boren — a Democrat — also told Fox News’ Stuart Varney Wednesday most of the tax breaks do not go to big businesses, but to small independent oil-and-gas firms.

 

“We would lose thousands of jobs — not only in Oklahoma, [but in] Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and places like Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia,” Boren said. “These are not just oil and gas — traditional oil-and-gas-producing states.
 

“And these tax breaks do not go to the big major oil companies — they go to small independent companies like we have in Oklahoma,” he said. “Did you know a vast majority of the production in the United States comes from small independent oil-and-gas companies? And the new rigs that are being — the new rigs that are drilling right now in the United States — they are not the ExxonMobils of the world.

“They are the Devons, the Chesapeakes, and even smaller companies that are based in Oklahoma, that are employing a lot of — by the way — a lot of Democrats [in] blue-collar jobs,” Boren continued. “And the president needs to understand that.”

Varney asked whether Boren didn’t have like-minded, Blue Dog Democrat colleagues in Congress to help stop elimination of the tax breaks.

“Well, unfortunately, a lot of my colleagues lost in the last election — I mean, good people from Louisiana, Mississippi — we lost because the president has lurched too far to the left on his energy policies,” Boren replied. “He has got to come to the middle — if he wants to win this next election, he has got to win over independents.

“He may write off Oklahoma — I don`t know if he has been to Oklahoma since the last election,” Boren added. “But he should be in places like the Gulf Coast, because, I mean, people are losing their jobs every single day because of this administration’s policies.