Blog

At a time when we have more than $15 trillion national debt, American taxpayers are set to give away over $110 billion dollars to the oil, gas, and coal industries over the next decade. Clearly, we cannot afford it. When the five largest oil companies made over $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, with some paying no federal income taxes for part of that time, they certainly do not need it.

It is time we end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks to hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the interests of the taxpayer instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That is I joined with Congressman Keith Ellison to introduce legislation in the Senate and the House called the End Polluter Welfare Act. Our proposal is backed by grassroots and public-interest organizations including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many others.

It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for Exxon Mobil which is the most profitable corporation in America. It is equally obscene that as those members of Congress fight to continue never-ending fossil fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one year extension for key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries. Instead of passing strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues the giveaways to the 200-year-old fossil fuel industry even as that industry’s carbon pollution wreaks devastation on our planet. Enough is enough.

While there have been attempts to remove some of these fossil-fuel subsidies in the past, our legislation is the most comprehensive ever put together in that it would end all of the tax breaks, special financing arrangements, and federal research support for fossil fuels. Our bill would make sure the fossil fuel industry pays its fair share by reforming royalties for drilling or mining on public lands or in federal waters. We end the loopholes that allow tar sands pipeline operators to avoid paying the oil spill clean-up tax.

It is important that the American people understand just how egregious these fossil fuel handouts are:

• A Tax Deduction for an Oil Spill? — We all remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. What is less well known is that BP is claiming a 9.9 billion tax deduction on the money they had to spend cleaning up their own mess and paying for damages they caused. That is absurd.

 

• They Manufacture What? — Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim ‘manufacturing’ tax deductions. The added cost for taxpayers:12 billion over the next ten years. (more…)

With almost $500 billion in annual revenues, ExxonMobil is one of the world’s truly powerful corporations. With all its resources and riches, the mammoth energy firm—the largest on the Fortune 500 list—Texas-based ExxonMobil is not loyal to America. Former CEO Lee Raymond made clear that his company’s only loyalty was to maximizing returns for shareholders when he pronounced, “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.” Or, Raymond might have added, based on what’s good for U.S. workers and communities.”

The company has been resisting implementing a safety agreement at a Louisianan refinery that it already has agreed to around the country. “ExxonMobil has been trying to undercut the rest of the oil industry on health and safety standards,” says Patrick Young of the United Steelworkers (USW) special campaigns department.

At a refinery employing 900 workers in Baton Rouge, La., the company has been resisting the appointment of a person for the crucial newly-created post of “process safety management representative,” Young says. The Process Safety Management Representative, under the terms of a national agreement reached February 1 between the USW and the oil industry, would be selected by the union, subject to approval by the company and responsible for calling attention to safety hazards and demanding that they be addressed.

The issue is part of larger negotiations between USW Local 13-12 and ExxonMobil, which are a new three-year contract. Local 13-12 members refused to vote on the company’s latest offer because it didn’t include the safety measure that is part of other union contracts at other refineries. (more…)

Ohio (along with my own California) has one of the nation’s biggest tax give-aways to the fossil fuel industry. It’s severance tax on natural gas is essentially zero — only 0.42 percent. Texas levies 7.5 percent, Oklahoma 7.1 percent, and neighboring West Virginia and Pennsylvania 5.79 percent.

So it might seem sensible that Governor John Kasich, whose proudest credential when he served in Congress was that he was serious about budgets and deficits, called on the Ohio legislature to raise the severance tax very modestly — 1.4-4 percent, but only on oil and natural gas liquids and only 1 percent on methane itself. So small were the increases that groups concerned about the state’s huge financial shortfall and cuts to education blasted them, pointing out that if Kasich had simply gone along with Texas, “enough money would be generated to pay for damages to local roads and infrastructure, stop the layoffs of thousands of police, fire and other public safety workers — or prevent increases in local property taxes that pay for schools.”

Former Presidential candidate Rick Santorum loudly proclaimed the Koch Brothers-Tea Party orthodoxy on such efforts to eliminate tax give-aways to oil and gas so they would “drive up the cost of energy, destroy this economy and do so at the behest of a bunch of radical environmentalists who do, in fact, want to drive up the cost of energy and slow down this economy…”

Of course Santorum was talking about President Obama, so you couldn’t be sure if this was simply a partisan slam, or a serious, principled policy position — that taxes on fossil fuels companies are bad, regardless of how low. But the reaction of the Tea Party in Ohio to Kasich’s efforts is revealing; it shows just how far the oil industry’s hold on the Tea Party faction of the Republican party goes, and how irrational the opposition to fair taxation has become.

Kasich was careful to make clear that he wasn’t going to raises overall; the increases severance revenues would all go to fund a billion dollar cut in the state’s income taxes. That didn’t buy him any cover at all. First the Ohio Oil and Gas Association came out against the tax — or any tax on natural gas liquids, the petroleum like substance that makes Ohio gas drilling profitable. (more…)

By Ryan Heustis
USW Unit Chair, Tesoro Refinery, Los Angeles

On May 3, two-dozen workers from my refinery and their families traveled from Los Angeles, Calif., to San Antonio, Texas, to attend the shareholder meeting of our company, Tesoro. 

In San Antonio we were joined by USW members from the Tesoro refineries in Martinez, Calif.; Ewa Beach, Hawaii; Anacortes, Wash., and Mandan, N.D., as well as USW members from across Texas who had driven hours to join us at the company’s shareholder meeting. 

At four of Tesoro refineries—Anacortes, Martinez, Los Angeles and Mandan—our union has been working for months to bargain fair contracts.  But management is insistent on forcing our members to agree to make permanent the deep cuts that they made to our retirement benefits in 201. And they are demanding that we give up our right to bargain over future changes to our benefits. 

We believe that the company implemented those cuts to our benefits to get back the millions they lost following the April 2010 explosion in Anacortes, which killed 7 workers.  I think that refinery workers have already paid dearly for that disaster, and I find it outrageous that the company is trying to force us to pay for management’s mistakes. 

At the shareholders meeting, Tesoro was clearly rattled by our presence.  When we showed up at the company’s front door, we were greeted by two San Antonio police officers and several security guards—a treatment that I don’t think other shareholders received.  Inside the meeting, the front of the room was roped dividing big money investors and board of directors from the rest of us—dividing the 1% from the 99%. 

The company made a significant change to their meeting’s agenda. In an unprecedented move, management refused to take any questions from shareholders at the meeting.  The only detour from the planned agenda was when Steve Garey, who is president of USW Local 591 from the Anacortes refinery, stood up and asked to be recognized.  He was called out of order, and the company’s CEO Greg Goff went on with his business.  (more…)

By Bill Scher
Executive editor of LiberalOasis.com

Before ExxonMobil announced a 69% jump in their profits this week, the oil giant’s top lobbyist launched an attack on Democrats who have long proposed ending subsidies to Big Oil and instead invest in clean energy. Politico reported:

“Over the last week as earnings season has approached, the Democratic Party leadership again talked about removing what they call $4 billion in oil industry subsidies,” Cohen said. “But what they really mean is that they want to increase our taxes by taking away long-standing deductions for our industry while leaving these same deductions in place for other sectors of the economy.”

Um, yeah.

ExxonMobil, this may be hard for you and your Big Oil friends to accept. But you’re all grown up now! (more…)

By Josh Nelson
New Media Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection and its Repower America campaign.

Three weeks ago, we
asked our members to nominate the worst corporate polluters of 2010. Our goal was to identify organizations that have hijacked our democracy, devastated our environment and denied the science of climate change — all while reaping massive profits. The response was overwhelming. In just a few days, more than 4,000 people submitted their nominations, many of which were passionate and articulate. The next week, we introduced the top four nominees: Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, BP and Massey Energy. A few days and 13,000 votes later we had our winner: Koch Industries.

Now, you may have heard a thing or two about Koch Industries. Their role in funding climate change deniers is well documented. What you may not realize is that Koch intentionally flies beneath the radar. David Koch likes to joke that Koch Industries is the biggest company you’ve never heard of. They’re able to remain unknown because they hide behind shadowy front groups like Americans for Prosperity. Co-founded by David Koch, Americans for Prosperity funds advertising and public events designed to mislead Americans about climate change and energy policy.

Koch Industries knows that if Americans realized that a massive oil pipeline and refinery company was behind harmless-sounding groups that work to mislead us about climate change, no one would listen to them. They want you to think that what is good for the oil industry is good for the American people, but you and I both know what they actually care about: their bottom line.

To spread the word about Koch Industries and its long history of working to deceive the American people about climate change, we’ve launched a new website: www.KochIndustriesFacts.com.

The site serves as a catalog of facts about Koch Industries and its owners, the brothers Charles and David Koch. What we’ve listed on the site is just the beginning. Click around for a bit, and if you see something that’s missing, make sure to let us know. I hope you’ll join us in highlighting Koch Industries’ worst transgressions by submitting a Koch fact of your own and passing the site along to a friend.

***

Josh Nelson is New Media Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection and its Repower America campaign.

***

Follow Josh Nelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/repoweramerica

***

This piece was first published at Climate Progress.

By Dave Johnson
Fellow with Campaign for America’s Future

The headline of my local paper today is Obama: Act on clean energy. (But a different headline online – do they do that just to mess up bloggers?)

In the speech the President paid homage to President Carter’s efforts to change America’s energy policies, saying:

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked — not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

Outflanked

Then the President said we have been outflanked on the coming green manufacturing revolution by countries like China:

The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

Cap And Trade Dead

In the Huffington Post today, Teryn Norris, Director of Americans for Energy Leadership writes that the President also signaled the death of cap and trade legislation:

Instead of using last night’s prime-time opportunity to push cap and trade … President Obama pressed the reset button on energy and climate policy, saying he was “happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party, as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” He made no mention of setting a price on carbon or establishing an emissions cap and trade system.

Others are trying to get things done on this front. Norris discusses the emerging Innovation Consensus:

The energy innovation consensus currently includes dozens of Nobel Laureates, Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, National Commission on Energy Policy, Third Way, Association of American Universities, Clean Air Task Force, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Google, and Americans for Energy Leadership, among others. The latest group to join is the American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC), made up of several of the nation’s top business leaders: Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, John Doerr, Chad Holliday, Norm Augustine, Ursula Burns, and Tim Solso. Last week, these leaders released a new report, “A Business Plan for America’s Energy Future,” calling for major new federal investment in clean energy technology RD&D — at least $16 billion annually, more than triple the current level (see our news roundup).

Here is the problem. Action on energy requires direct government action and rejection of deficit hysteria to do it. But every single initiative of the Obama Presidency has been blocked by powerful interests, playing on the use of the filibuster on almost every major bill in the Senate. Health care reform was severely weakened by the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. Financial reform has been severely weakened by the financial lobbies. Jobs measures and further stimulus have been blocked by a strategic lobbying campaign to make people think the Bush-created deficit must be cut first. Now cap and trade may have been killed by the oil and gas lobbies.

We are in a direct confrontation between the big corporations and We, the People over who will run things and control the resources of the United States, and We, the People are losing. There is time to turn it around, but only if we recognize this battle for what it is.

***

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project and the “Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy.” Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

 

***

Johnson also is a fellow at the Commonweal Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream.

***

Follow Dave Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcjohnson