Oil executives ask Congress for support
Do you think the oil industry will sovle the energy problem?
Politico-Top executives from the nation’s five largest oil companies told the special House global warming committee Tuesday that the companies can’t meet future energy demands unless Congress stops punishing them for their profits.
The House voted last month to remove $18 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry and reinvest the money in solar, wind and other renewable energies.
The move has been lampooned by the business sector and many Republicans, who contend it will push up gasoline prices. Oil executives asked lawmakers Tuesday to support their investments in renewable energy, rather than punishing them for their profits.
“Imposing punitive taxes on American companies, which already pay record taxes, will discourage the sustained investments needed to continue safeguarding U.S. energy security,” said Exxon Mobile Corp. senior vice president Stephen Simon.
Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and other companies have invested billions of dollars developing biofuels, wind farms, and other sources of renewable energy.
But lawmakers lampooned Simon and the other executives for the skyrocketing price of gasoline, despite their companies’ record profits.
The oil industry’s profits have quadrupled over the past six years, with Exxon Mobile racking in more than $40 billion in profits last year – the greatest corporate profit in history. The average price of gasoline reached an all-time high of $3.29 a gallon on Monday.
“Today, on April Fools Day, consumers all over America are hoping that the top executives from the five largest oil companies will tell us that these soaring gas prices are just part of some elaborate hoax,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke.”
Did Murder, Inc., solve the crime problem?
Rome is burning and these damn bureaucrats and politicians are fiddling around running around in circles. Why doesn’t “little oil” get any tax breaks? What happened to competition and the even playing field? These jackasses are all just “servicing” each other behind closed doors. And stay the hell out of everything including solar, geo-thermal, methane whatever.
(Meant to say keep the GOVERNMENT out of the energy business. Let the market decide.) Preferential treatment to “big oil” means preferential treatment to their “alternatives” too like BP solar for example. but is it the best? Who knows.