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Show Page 44 - THE HERALD, Provo. Utah. S & Mil 1 1 - Oil pro(AP) ducers are predicting an energy crunch twice as severe as the 1979 version unless Congress follows WASHINGTON President Reagan's lead by pre- serving $32 billion in tax deductions for drilling costs. will make make 1973 and 1979 look like a Cakewalk," Charles J. DiBona, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warned Tuesday as House tax writers focused on Reagan's overhaul plan. Several oil executives who appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee conceded the industry image is one of sizeable profits and low taxes. But the executives maintained the reality is otherwise. Reagan's proposed phaseout of a the oil depletion allowance reperennial target of would-b- e came in for less critiformers cism as the industry leveled its guns at any move to tamper with "intangible drilling costs." deductions, Ending drilling-cos- t the oil executives maintained, would discourage exploration by making it too expensive. The resulting erosion of supplies would force huge, new imports. The same argument was used for decades in rearguard actions by producers against cuts in the depletion allowance. Under current law, producers may deduct immediately as intangible drilling costs any expenses for unsalvageable items, such as labor and fuel. it A 1984 Treasury Department Thursday, June v. Mm 20, 1985 3o ve Tax Break plan provided for spreading such deductions evenly over each well's operating life and ending the of drilling expenses. It would produce an estimated $32.11 billion in revenue, primarily from corporations. Reagan's overhaul plan, a reworking of the Treasury proposal, would preserve the drilling-cos- t deduction. But industry critics have been eyeing it as a something that dry-hol- e Devine of the Government Ac- countability Project, an independent group that defends whistleblowers, said, "Let whistleblowers defend themselves" in court rather than before the Office of Special Counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Federal courts have ruled that federal employees do not have the d disputes. right to sue in Most go through the administrative process first. "I strongly recommend abolition of the Office of Special Counsel." said James Pope, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who lost his job and said his career was "destroyed" by FAA reprisals. "It has not only been totally ineffective, it has actually been the key element of legal matrix that has stripped federal employees of job-relate- their rights under the First Amendment," Pope told a House Post Office and Civil Service sub- committee. While with the FAA. Pope criticized the agency for refusing to approve a privately developed system to prevent airplane collisions while the agency spent millions of dollars in an unsuccessful effort to come up with its own system. if an oil c s occurred in 1992. this step alor would increase oil prices by 'j a barrel." he said. He said it also would cut industrial production, worsen unemployment and enlarge the budget deticit. Besides higher prices and the potential ot lines at the pump, producers raised the specter ot new U.S. dependence on overseas suppliers. it would demonstrate to foreign could be jettisoned it more revenue were needed. DiBona said, however, that taxing drilling costs would cut domestic oil production by you.OUU barrels a day by 19li and 16 million by 1995. He said that would be twice the shortiall we suttered in 1979 and. even without a supply crisis, would raise prices by $4 a barrel and add $35 billion to the U.S. import bill." lost the preference in 1976. but it still applies to independents and royalty owners. Reagan's plan calls fur a five-yephaseout at a rate of 20 percent annually. Exempted would be "stripper" wells, which yield fewer than 10 barrels a day and account for 15 percent of the nation's production. DiBona said the phaseout would "reduce an important incentive for ind pendents." Sharper opposition came from the Oklahoma-base- d National Association of Royalty Owners Inc., which says most of its members are taxpayers of modd oil barest means, not countries that we are ?:. their mercy." declared William R. Goft. Sachairman of the Dallas-base- d ar bine Corp. "We strongly urge you to allow this aspect of the proposal to remain as it is." Goff said. The oil industry's percentage depletion allowance is 15 percent ot the first 1.000 barrels produced, down from 27.5 percent after decades of whittling. Major companies Contest Wins Tax Break Ultimate WASHINGTON apportioning "the costs of national security and domestic protection to the states." Most of the 535 members of the House and Senate would be gone too. She would keep only "one or two from each state" to deal with military spending, she explained in a telephone interview Tuesday. There still would be a commander in chief, she said, with the president's salary coming out of the military budget. "We still need a representative in the world," she said. But states could decide for themselves whether to run social programs. Miss Nichols won a raft of other scholarships and awards during her four years in high school, and is headed for the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma in the fall to major in computer science. A spokeswoman for the savings league said the judges were impressed with the originality of her proposal. She topped 757 other high school and college students who entered the contest. "We can blame the executive administration; we can blame Congress; we can blame wars, welfare and the wealthy. Regardless of Eighteen-year-ol(APi Deborah L. Nichols has a modest proposal for overcoming the federal deficit that would go a long way towards simplifying the federal tax code too. In fact, it makes Kemp-RotBradley-GephardTreasury One, President Reagan and the rest of the tax reformers look like pikers Her solution is simple: She would reduce the 14 marginal tax rates in the current federal tax code to one, and set that rate at zero. d t, As in nothing. For that rather startling suggestion, the was named today Burlington, Wash., teen-age- r the winner of a $10,000 scholarship from the U.S. League of Savings Institutions for the best essay on reducing the federal deficit. Miss Nichols, a recent graduate of Burlington-Edison High School, thinks the federal government, to break the addiction of deficit spending, should stop taxing everybody for anything. Instead, all taxing power would revert to the states. Gone would be every federal program except a streamlined defense budget to be paid for by well-heele- the cause, the deficit is a fact that meets each American face to face on the job, at home, at the store, in the factory and at the bank." Miss Nichols wrote. "Obviously, simple solutions are neither practical nor saleable," she reasoned. She takes aim at Keynesian economics, New Deal programs materialism, "make-wor- k and the "ridiculously high" defense budget. But she also laments that society is not spending enough on education. She acknowledged her plan would offend people "who depend upon the federal government to set food on their tables, buy artificial hearts, research fossils in Africa, abort unwanted babies and provide retirement benefits." But it "will bring the runaway deficit back home where the flames can be controlled." Three runners-u- p with less Draconian ideas for reducing the deficit won $2,500 prizes. They were; Kimberly Gail Yelton, 26. of the University of Houston; Denise Williams, 32, of Los Angeles City College, and Sean Shinkay, a new graduate of George S. Parker High School in Janesville, Wis. ons. is nothing fair," James Stafford, association executive director, said, "about singling out the poorest element of one industry to prove that everyone will have to pay their share." industry officials drew mixed reactions when they repeatedly insisted their companies are already paying their fair share of taxes. "There L. Rep. Fortney H. Stark, cited a report titled "Corporate Income Taxes in the Reagan Years, a Study of Three Years of Legalized Tax Avoidance." PreCipared by the Washington-base- d tizens for Tax Justice, the report said Tenneco. Texaco, Ashland Oil and Superior Oil earned substantial profits in the 1981-6period while paying no taxes. It cited a number of other energy companies that paid at a rate of 12 percent or lower. 3 1 'Whistleblowers' Want Protective Agency- Abolished WASHINGTON Less tUPI) than a week after a special office set up to protect federal workers gave them their biggest victory ever, several whistleblowers have urged Congress to abolish the agency because they say it is ineffective. Whistleblowers who attended a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday applauded loudly when Thomas Face Oil C run ir "4' i n COMPACT mm SANYO STEREO Via" 'Jfi SYSTEM 660 DIGITAL AUDIO PIONEER AMFM Stereo tuner with Ptt synthesizer 5 band, 200 watt f Pope said he got no results when he went to the OSC and urged the subcommittee to restore our constitutional rights so we can take our grievances to the courts for LJ SANYO NOW system Stylish cabinet is the perfect component to this high quality SifiJ NOW Random access programability Audible search Track advance Repeat feature I.C. logic controls turntable 12" 3 way speaker redress." "We don't need any protector," Pope said. "We can protect ourselves but only it our full constitutional rights are restored." Several other whistleblowers also testified about OSC inaction and called for the office's abolition. The OSC. created in 1978 as part of general civil service reform, protects federal workers from illegal personnel practices, such as retaliation against those who expose government waste. The office had limited success until last week when the Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the top official and two others at the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency punished for retaliating against auditor George Span-to- COMPACT DISC PLAYER stereo equalizer Dual transport cassette deck ONLY 3W Model PD5010 system! mm 4 6 fcf - n. Spanton. who had been chief DCAA auditor at the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft facility in West Palm Beach. Fla. , until his retirement, charged that he was given an unjustified transfer after he went public with audits critical of what he said were waste, fraud and abuse at Pratt & Whitney. G P'.- ... i r "" - y 1 MANUAL TUNING '3113801110 The board ordered audit agency Director Charles Starrett fired and fined $1,000 for his role in approving reprisals against Spanton and ordered two of Spanton's supervisors in the agency's Atlanta office , ' AMFM STEREO RADIO CASSETTE PLAYER REPEATRACK "r CQ-S68- Repeatrack automatically starts play after rewind FM optimizer improves fringe reception Power antenna lead Balance & tone controls Compact chassis with adjustable shafts fits 98 of today's domestic and imported cars faff LIMITED QUANTITY demoted from supervisory positions for three vears and lined. Panasonic New Jesery Policeman Held in Wife's Death - A ELIZABETH. N J ilPD New Jersey police ollicer who woman withmarried a out divorcing his wile, has been charged with poisioning his first spouse with cyanide two months alter his second marriage, authorities said Walter Luther Williams ot N.J., was arrested Tuesday, when he reported for duty, lor fatally poisoning his wile. Rosalind Williams, 36, w ith cyanide. H ' also is under investigation lor the uvath of his mother-in-laUnion County Prosecutor John Stamler said Williams also was charged with ollicial misconduct and falsifying divorce, marriage and inheritance documents The prosecutor said Williams recycled another person s divorce pa d Ro-sell- pers and forged a judge's signature in order to get a license to marry his second wile. Jennifer Doyle. 20. of Elizabeth. N J "He had a woman who he was obviously in love with." Stamler said "The only way he could live with her and have peace of mind was get nil ot the first wife and law Stamler said Williams, who also mother-i- was charged with bigamy, lived with iXtyle and her parents in their Elizabeth home lor two months after their Nov 2. 1984. marriage "We have no reason to believe Jennifer had am knowledge ot any criminal activity, Stamler said Rosalind Williams died just alter midnight on Jan 31. 1985. a month alter her hushuinl returned to their home More Ads But Less Smoking WASHINGTON U PD For the inore than a decade, the total number of cigarettes sold lirst time in United States dropped in and 1983 despite a record advertising push by the tobacco industry, a federal study shows In a report to Congress Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission said 632 billion cigarettes were sold in 1982, down 4 billion from the year before. It said cigarette sales dropped again in 198;), to 584 in the 1982 billion. The FTC said cigarette advertisirose nearly 25 ng expenditures percent in Utj to M 9 oiilioii ,nri an additional 36 percent in I9K.I to a new record high ol $2 7 billion The commission said the sales decreases lullowcd an uninterrupted decline Irom 1973 lo 1983 in per capita consumption ol cigarettes, Irom 4,112 lo 3.447, which is less than a hall a pack a da) per person The Tobacco Institute, a trade group that represents the industry, t had no comment on the FTC but noted the 1983 decline corresponded w ith Congress doubling the lederal lax on cigarettes that r.u ren 4 I -- 6"x9" 39 95 NOW M 13 () AMFM cassette stereo High oower 40 watts locking fast forwardeject Tone balonce controls Matched 5" speakers with 2" tweeter. 6': DUAL CONE SPEAKERS Metal mesh grille. Max input power: 30 watts. Frequency range: 40Hz - 20Khz. 4 ohms. 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