A former Bush administration economist testified on Capitol Hill Thursday that tax benefits are needed to help convert the nation’s truck fleet to run on domestic natural gas instead of imported diesel fuel.
Greenwire, an online portal that covers energy and environmental policy news, reports that Lawrence Lindsay, the former Director of the National Economic Council from 2001 to 2002, testified in support of H.R. 1380, the NAT GAS Act, before a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.
A key focus of the hearing was tax credits that would be granted to buyers of natural gas vehicles and incentives for manufacturers and suppliers who support natural gas. In Lindsey’s opinion, these credits and subsidies would fix a specific problem: that people won’t buy natural gas-fueled trucks because there is no easy way to fuel them, while fuel suppliers won’t develop a fueling system because there are not enough vehicles that use natural gas.
“Once you have a technology in place, it’s very hard to make a change,” said Lawrence Lindsey, who now has an economic advisory firm in northern Virginia.
Lindsey was the chief economic adviser to George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and then served as director of the National Economic Council in the Bush White House.
The hearing by the subcommittees on Select Revenue Measure and Oversight comes as full committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has directed the panel to investigate how comprehensive tax reform would affect certain sectors of the economy.
The NAT GAS Act currently has 183 bipartisan cosponsors in the House and is also supported by 240 businesses, large and small, to reclaim our energy, economic and national security future by unleashing the vast potential of American-made natural gas as a transportation fuel.