Despite tough times for the nation’s oil and gas producers, President Barack Obama is proposing a $10 per barrel oil fee to pay for clean energy and transportation initiatives.

George Rogers, chairman of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, said the tax on the sale of crude oil produced in the U.S. is a needless attempt to strangle an industry critical to the nation’s economy and security. Oil prices were about $32 on Feb. 5.

“A $10-per-barrel tax on an industry already in a deep decline would be a death sentence,” he said.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast Brent crude oil prices to average $40 per barrel in 2016 and $50 in 2017 and if prices linger in the $60s going forward the tax could be crippling.

The proposal was met with scorn by conservative politicians and industry veterans. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement “President Obama’s oil tax is dead on arrival in Congress.”

The White House introduced the plan as part of a $300 billion “21st Century Clean Transportation System” initiative. The fee would be phased in over a 10-year period.

Obama’s initiative looks to alter the U.S. transportation system, which accounts for “30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.”

The plan says that travelers choose among walking, biking, driving, flying and taking the train while companies choose between trucks, barges, airplanes and rail lines.

“Our transportation system is heavily dependent on oil,” the plan says. “That is why we are proposing to fund these investments through a new $10 per barrel fee on oil paid by oil companies, which would be gradually phased in…”

By placing a fee on oil, the plan creates a “clear incentive for private sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in clean energy technologies that will power our future.”

Veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens tweeted that he didn’t know where to start on the proposal.

“Dumbest idea ever? #crazytalk.”

The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) said it makes little sense to tax an industry going through its largest crisis in 25 years.

The plan puts a “hidden tax on American consumers currently benefiting from low energy costs,” IPAA said.

Ryan called the plan an election year distraction by a lame duck president.

“A $10 tax for every barrel of oil produced would raise energy prices—hurting poor Americans the most,” Ryan said. “This announcement, the latest in a series of regulatory attacks on the energy sector, proves President Obama is still on a mission to destroy a major backbone of the U.S. economy. The president should be proposing policies to grow our economy instead of sacrificing it to appease progressive climate activists.”

Jeff Zients, director of the White House National Economic Council, pushed back against assertions the oil tax would place U.S. crude producers at a disadvantage, Reuters reported. On a press call he said that the fee would be applied to domestically produced and imported barrels of oil but not to crude exported from the United States.

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.