From today’s Senate Finance Committee festival of finger-pointing, “Oil and Gas Tax Incentives and Rising Energy Prices,” a serious observation from Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil:

It is important to make clear that tax provisions such as the Section 199 Domestic Production Activities deduction are not special incentives, preferences or subsidies for oil and gas, but rather standard deductions applied across all businesses in the United States.

Section 199 applies today to all U.S. domestic producers and manufacturers – from newspaper publishers, to corn farmers, to movie producers, and even coffee roasters. All can claim this deduction, which is intended to support job creation and retention in the United States….

Frankly, to then deny a select few companies within the oil and gas industry this standard deduction is tantamount to job discrimination. Why should an American refinery worker employed by a major U.S. oil and gas company in Billings, Montana, be treated as inferior to an American movie producer in Hollywood, an American newspaper worker in New York, or an employee at a foreign-owned refinery in Lemont, Illinois?

That’s a good topic of a hearing: “Respecting the First Amendment: Ending Subsidies for Big Newspapers.”

Any Senator who labeled the current tax treatment of oil and gas producers a “subsidy” today clearly knows better. If translated into policy, this kind of cynical populism makes the United States less competitive and discourages job creation.

Best single place to keep track of Hurricane’s Ike impact is the Weather Nerd blog from Brendan Loy at Pajama’s Media.  Good compendium of resources and informed commentary, including worrisome observations like:

Even if Ike’s winds were to unexpectedly weaken to Cat. 1 force (or, heck, to tropical storm force), Ike would still be a “major hurricane” in terms of its massive storm surge. The surge, not the category, is the story! This is because of the sheer volume of water Ike is pushing across the Gulf, as I discussed at length yesterday. And that water is already in motion, inexorably bearing down on the gently sloping Texas coast. If coastal residents are taking this storm less seriously than they might because it’s “only” a Category 2, they are making a serious mistake. Eric Berger has an excellent post this morning about the predicted surge, with an updated SLOSH map.

And for the impact on energy, Bloomberg’s story is good:

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil and gasoline rose as Hurricane Ike headed toward the Texas coast, home to 23 percent of U.S. refining capacity, shutting almost all Gulf of Mexico oil production as it passes.

About 19 percent of U.S. oil processing capacity has been shut before Ike makes landfall today. More than a quarter of U.S. crude production is based in the Gulf Coast region. Evacuations have halted 97 percent of Gulf oil output, the Minerals Management Service said yesterday.

“The big concern is about the products because the refineries aren’t running,” said Tom Bentz, senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York. “It remains to be seen how much damage will occur, but nobody wants to take chances.”

The concentration of energy-producing infrastructure on the Gulf Coast is detrimental to U.S. economic resilience. We need more redundancy and geographically dispersed production and refining capacity — as in a new refinery in South Dakota by Hyperion and an expansion at ConocoPhillips’ Wood River Refinery in southern Illinois. Yes, more of that kind of thing, and less of this:

Oregon and 11 other states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries.

The suit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, charges that the EPA violated the federal Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards, known as new source performance standards, for controlling global warming pollution emissions from oil refineries.