A Lube Job from The Decider

posted by The Vidiot @ 1:28 PM Permalink

Bush Rejects Tax on Oil Companies' Profits

President Bush on Friday rejected calls in Congress for a tax on oil company profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent windfalls in finding and producing more energy.
[...]
"These oil prices are a wakeup call," Bush said. "We're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil."

Bush signed a bill 8 months ago that gave the oil companies tax BREAKS for exploration. He suspended environmental regs for them, he's insisting on giving our national treasures to them (see ANWAR). That didn't work even while they were making record profits. And let's not forget this little lovenote from Valentine's Day:

U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies

WASHINGTON - The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

It's one of the greatest train robberies in the history of the world. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

US Rep George Miller
New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.

Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.

And what are they currently doing with those profits?

Oil industry prepares $30 million fight back

The oil industry is preparing a new, multimillion-dollar lobbying and educational campaign in response to growing political pressures brought on by rising gas prices, oil lobbyists said.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry’s main trade group, plans a yearlong grassroots lobbying push that could cost in excess of $30 million to explain how the industry works and what has caused pump prices to jump.

What the hell does 'grassroots' even mean in this context? Here's an example of what "has caused pump prices to jump"?

The retirement compensation package given by Exxon Mobil Corp. to outgoing Chairman Lee Raymond is said to total $400 million when all pension payoffs and stock options are included.

And what do the repubs propose?

GOP leaders unveiled a 10-point plan aimed at soothing the growing election-year public anger over high gasoline prices.

It included a $100 fuel-cost rebate for millions of taxpayers and proposals to rescind oil industry tax breaks enacted only eight months ago, and other measures.

But the plan also called for opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling - a longtime goal of several large oil companies operating on the Alaska North Slope

A hundred bucks!? That's about 3 refills. And it's comes out of OUR tax money, not the oil companies obscene profits!

And I'm sure the following has nothing to do with it:

the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that five oil-company mergers since 1990 had pushed up gasoline prices an average of one or 2 cents a gallon.

The oil industry is one of the biggest donors to Republican election campaigns. In 2004, the industry gave 80 percent of its $26 million in campaign donations to Republican candidates, including $2.6 million to Bush. That was the Republicans' biggest share in at least a decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

In 2005, the industry gave 84 percent of $7 million to the Republicans, and the top 20 congressional recipients of the industry's giving were all Republicans.

And these are the folks in charge of 'ethics reform!?'