Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole said Tuesday that the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee pledged to do whatever is necessary to help the territory receive some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that go into the U.S. Treasury from federal excise taxes on Hovensa petroleum products.
In a press conference with Senate President Almando "Rocky" Liburd, Cole said that Rep. William Thomas, R-Calif., made the pledge in a meeting last week in Washington, D.C., with the two V.I. senators, one of several discussions they held with U.S. lawmakers and executive branch officials.
Other issues raised in their meetings, they said, were the newly designated national monument areas in the territory, debt relief on Federal Emergency Management Agency loans and threats posed to the rum industry by other producing nations such as the Philippines.
"This is a tax issue in Ways and Means," Cole said of the gas excise tax. "We planted a seed on this issue" and will pursue it further on a return trip to the nation's capital in six weeks, he said. That will be the third visit to Washington in about four months for majority bloc senators.
Neither Rep. Thomas nor his press secretary were available for comment at midday Tuesday.
Cole said Tuesday that the excise taxes on gasoline produced at Hovensa's St. Croix refinery total some $400 million annually; the Source has reported that more than $680 million in total sales taxes were collected on Virgin Islands-produced gasoline in 1998. A 10 percent return to the V.I. on the higher figure translates into $68 million. A 20 percent return would bring in $136 million.
The administration of Gov. Charles W. Turnbull has said it supports the senators' lobbying efforts on the tax, as has Delegate to Congress Donna Christian Christensen.
Liburd and Cole proudly displayed a number of photographs of themselves with Thomas and other congressmen, including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, and Sen. John Breaux, D-La.
Cole also said the U.S. Solicitor General's Office was asked to look into the legality of former President Bill Clinton's designation of 1 percent of undersea lands in the territory as national monuments. Liburd added that they would seek input on drafting regulations on the monuments that would, for example, allow fishing, which is now barred in the almost all the monument zones off St. John and St. Croix; bait fishing in Hurricane Hole and hard-nose fishing on the south shore of St. John are both currently allowed by permit.
The national monuments were designated to protect endangered coral reefs and fisheries. Despite their small area, the monuments are big enough to help revive dwindling fish populations, according to marine scientists and V.I. National Park Superintendent John King.
