Bush won't back renewable bill with oil tax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush Administration will oppose any tax credits for solar or renewable energy legislation that are funded through new taxes on oil industry, a senior U.S. Energy Department official said on Monday.

"From our perspective, trying to single out the oil industry, and even a few companies in the oil industry, is not the way to increase production, increase supply, which is important for this country at the time," Deputy Energy Secretary Jeff Kupfer told the Reuters Energy Summit in a conference call from Houston.

Last month, lawmakers unveiled an energy package that would revoke $17 billion in tax breaks extended to big oil companies and hit companies that do not invest in new energy technologies with a 25 percent windfall tax.

"We have not seen anything to come from the Congress thus far in terms of an overall package that we would be able to support, primarily because of the offsets that are being used to pay for the extensions of those credits," Kupfer said, adding that the administration has backed renewable energy tax credits in the past.

Oil companies have seen their profits surge in recent months on the back of the crude oil's rally to record levels above $130 per barrel.

Solar cell makers, whose products turn sunlight into electricity, have complained that the U.S. government's failure to renew tax credits has put its growth in jeopardy and caused them to shift jobs overseas.

A separate measure to renew tax breaks for solar, wind, biomass and other renewables passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month, although the White House has threatened to veto that bill because it did not protect millions of Americans from having to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Matt Daily; Editing by Brian Moss)