Big Oil continues to see big profits, pollution while Americans get robbed at the pump

from Grist:




Held Up Without a Gun
Big Oil continues to see big profits, pollution while Americans get robbed at the pump

by Daniel J. Weiss
30 Apr 2010 11:13 AM


I was out driving/just a taking it slow
Looked at my tank/ it was reading low
Pulled in a Exxon station/out on Highway One
Held up without a gun
Held up without a gun

- Bruce Springsteen


Springsteen's song could not be more true today. Big Oil is once again riding high oil prices to large profits (see below) while American consumers get stuck with a $2.7 billion gasoline bill in the first quarter of 2010 due to higher oil prices. But the problems with oil go beyond these companies' profits. Rising oil prices also add more filthy lucre to the coffers of hostile regimes, including Iran.

Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico is suffering a huge oil spill while taxpayers spend billions of dollars paying for tax loopholes for Big Oil. And Big Oil spends record amounts of money to pressure Congress to cement these loopholes in place and defeat clean energy legislation. Adding injury to insult, big oil opposes energy and global warming legislation that would reduce our reliance on oil.

Enough is enough. We need Congress to stand up to Big Oil and pass legislation that addresses the problems with oil profits and oil use. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are working on legislation that would reduce oil dependence and put a declining limit and rising price on carbon. These measures would reduce our dependence on oil, increase national security, create jobs, and cut pollution.

Mo' prices, mo' problems

U.S. crude oil prices rose from $31.76 per barrel in January 2009 to $85.17 by April 29, 2010 after a price slump at the end of 2008. This is an increase of nearly 160 percent over a 15-month period. The Energy Information Administration recently predicted that oil prices will rise to above an average of $81 per barrel by this summer while average gasoline prices will likely exceed $3.00 per gallon this spring. Drivers will pay 17 percent more for gas compared to summer 2009 -- $174 million per day, or an average of $602 per household annually. Energy price volatility like this hurts consumer and business investments, causing families to delay buying a car and spend less on buying or upgrading their homes. Businesses also cut investments, while profits surge in the oil and gas industry. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-30-big-oil-companies-continue-to-see-big-profits-pollution-while-am/

Do you really want a government agency setting gas prices? It seems like that would just be exchanging the devil we know for the devil we don't.

Of course, I'm biased because I'm in favour of very high gasoline prices to promote conservation, a shift to electrical transportation and deep reductions in GHG generation. I'd personally like to see a stiff carbon tax phased in over a few years, say something that would triple gasoline prices over the next ten years.

It isn't popular but higher gasoline prices are necessary to promote conservation and a change to alternate fuels (natural gas, fuel cells, electric vehicles, etc).

A Prius, or electric vehicle, or Chevy Volt doesn't make much sense at $1 a gallon but starts making a lot of sense at $4 a gallon and at $6 a gallon it is a no brainer.

Carbon tax would increase the cut that goes to the govt (instead of oil companies).

:grr:

Big Oil companies are a perfectly natural, understandable outcome given that modern industrial society operates from the premises of competition-mediated scarcity, institutionalized power hierarchies, the veneration of the individual and human ownership of all planetary resources.

If we changed those underlying premises Big Oil would vanish overnight, along with most of the other institutions that plague us. If we don't change them, the best we can hope for is non-uniform, partially effective, easily subverted harm reduction legislation.

It is their direct and intentional influence that has kept sustainable energy models from reaching the public.

That is a cause.

But we want to stop using it.

Nothing on this planet will give you better entertainment value than our tangled webs.