International Carter stands by his energy-saving plans

Press, 11 June 1977, Page 7

International Carter stands by his energy-saving plans

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Carter yesterday i stood by tax proposals in his energy-conservation programme despite stinging re j bulls oy a kev Congressioia. commit! ee. "It's going to be tough." al White House spokesman, Mr] Job;- Powell, said of the! prospects of getting the President’s programme through Congress without a drastic overhaul. ?>lr Powell, speaking after a series of set-backs suffered by the Carter Administration; in the powerful Ways and Means Committee of the! House of Representatives, said that the President still] believed firmlv in his propo-i sals. But the Ways and Means Committee — which drafts! tax legislation for Congress' — hacked away on Thursday; at the heart of the Pre-] sident’s plans to save oil! through a complicated sys-i tern of tax cuts and tax in-; creases. In a day-long session. the committee killed his proposal for higher petrol taxes, scrapped his plan for big cash discounts for buyers of new cars, and severely weakened his proposal

for big new taxes on the big; tears still favoured by many j Americans. The committee, which will' resume consideration of the itax portions of the programme on Monday, threw out by 27 votes to 10 a [request by the President tor' [a stand-by netrol-tax inIcrease. Under the President’s pro-j posals. the Federal tax le-i ! vied on petrol would have: : gone up by five cents a gallon in each of the 10 vearsi starting in 1979 if con-! Isumotion kept rising. i The pian, according to! ■ official estimates, would! ■ have brought in SSOOOM in: the first vear of its operation. Each 5c increase 'would have brought in an additional SSOOOM.

The committee also overwhelmingly lejected Mr Carter's plan to give discounts' of up to $5(10 to Americans who buy small cars. At the urging <>i Ford and Chrysler, who comnlainedj that then customers would: be hit hard, the committee l approved a weakened ver-' sion of Mr Carter’s plan toi impose stiff taxes of up toi $5OO on big cars, starting' with the 1978 models. It decided to propose that the big-car rax should not go into effect until the 1979 model vear, and even then apply only to cars which got Tess than 24km/gal. Mr Cariter wanted the tax to go into effect on 1978 models — “They go on sale this August” — which do less than 30km/gal.