US House Votes for Quadrupling of Per-Barrel Oil Tax

The US House of Representatives on Friday voted to more than quadruple a per-barrel oil tax that fills a special trust fund to pay for damages from major spills like the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The measure called for raising the eight-cent-per-barrel tax to 34 cents, raising nearly 12 billion dollars over 10 years for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which currently holds about 1.5 billion dollars.

The legislation, which passed by a 215-204 margin, also aimed to raise the cap on per-incident trust fund expenditures from one billion dollars to five billion dollars.'

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