Hagan Campaign: Dole Callously Puts Special Interests Ahead of North Carolina's Interests

GREENSBORO, N.C. – While working North Carolinian families struggle to make ends meet paying $4 per gallon at the gas pump, Elizabeth Dole again voted today against a measure to redirect $17 billion in tax incentives and subsidies for big oil and gas towards clean energy entrepreneurs and impose a windfall tax on their record profits. Hagan Communications Director Colleen Flanagan issued the following statement.

“Unfortunately it’s no surprise that Elizabeth Dole prioritized the needs of special interests and lobbyists ahead of North Carolina’s interests, including those of working families who are struggling to make ends meet,” Flanagan said. “Gas cost $1.52 per gallon when Elizabeth Dole took office in 2003, and while her friends in the oil and gas industry make out quite well with gas prices at $4 per gallon and oil exceeding $136 per barrel, working families in North Carolina and consumers across the country are in a panic.

“Kay knows that any solution to our energy problem will have to reduce costs, increase investments in clean energy, create good jobs in North Carolina that can’t be outsourced, reinvest these misdirected subsides and curb the obscene oil profits that Dole’s friends enjoy at the expense of working North Carolinians.”

Voting against working families is nothing new for Elizabeth Dole. When she had the chance to support programs that aid working families, such as renewable energy tax incentives, expanding the child tax credit, the R&D tax credit and the deductability of state sales tax, Elizabeth Dole voted against the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act. This measure would have been paid for by ending the deferral of taxation for hedge fund managers’ offshore income and pushing back the start date of a business tax credit for multinational corporations that has never taken effect.

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