House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today released the following statement regarding President Obama’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2014:

“Once again, the President’s budget misses the mark. Over two months late, it’s obvious that this budget is not a credible plan to create jobs, strengthen our economy, boost energy production, or lower the debt.  Instead, it largely ignores our current fiscal crisis – proposing new taxes and more spending while not balancing the budget.

“The President’s budget claims to support an all-of-the-above energy program, but instead it picks winners and losers. It also imposes billions of dollars of new taxes and fees on American energy production. President Obama has already successfully blocked energy production on federal lands and the policies in this budget would only make it worse. This is exactly why energy production on federal lands is down while energy production on state and private lands is thriving. Higher taxes and fees will stifle production, denying the federal government new revenue, and raise energy prices for families and small businesses at a time when they can least afford it.

“Finally, this budget exposes the Obama Administration’s inability to prioritize spending at a time of record debts and deficits. For example, requiring hundreds of millions of dollars in mandatory spending to buy more federal land, when we can’t even afford to maintain the land we already own, is bad policy and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.”