Big Oil....Still as Dirty as Ever...

Yet another reason to move to alternative fuels (see previous blog) is to reduce the profits of Big Oil, which - thanks to the disgusting 'Citzens United' decision of the Supreme Court in 2009, means vast sums from profits can be used to influence elections. The attached graphic shows how it works, and the magnitudes of the money involved as so-called "speech"- actually more like bribery.

On top of this, government has been plying Oil companies with tax subsidies ever since...via a device called the 'Oil Depletion Tax Allowance'. Basically, the deal is any drilling or pumping the oil companies do is partially compensated by giving them tax subsidies or 'refunds' for the 'depletion' (today it averages nearly $1.3 billion a year, according to the League of Conservation Voters). JFK, in the spring of 1963, had targeted removing this once and for all, but as we know from history that didn't work out to well. (One of the ostensible planners or architects of his assassination is purported to be Texas Oil tycoon Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club at which plans for JFK's demise were discussed in July of 1963 (see, e.g. Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason).

Even when I worked for a large New Orleans Oil Company in the 1960s, it was a well known fact that much of the money the company received was plowed back into political operations. This has probably been ongoing since the Oil Depletion tax allowance was created. It was also a laughing matter at the same company (by the hot shots on the office floor, or 5th floor, that each summer gas prices were bound to go up at least 20%. Thanks to curtailing supply from the Louisiana offshore wells!)

Today the despicable trend continues. In 2009, Exxon Mobil spent over $27.4 million lobbying congress and the federal government. And together with Big Coal (the other partner of the fossil fuel tandem) Big Oil spent nearly $120 million to try to defeat clean energy legislation including controls for greenhouse gases. Eventually they did prevail, as no major legislation was passed, and that was exactly why the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) stepped in with its own CO2 -controlling regs.

Now, three gueses here and the first two don't count: any guess as to who is behind the rider attached to the latest Republican ($12 billion) budget offer, which guts these same EPA regulations? C'mon, I know even Teepees can figure this one out!

This stuff isn't new, neither is the propaganda. Some may recall from the early 90s that money saved by Exxon Mobil (from having to clean up its massive spill in Alaska) was used to prepare an "educational" video Exxon distributed to tens of thousands of public schools free, of course) that rewrote the history of the worst oil spill ever as a "great test for their cleanup equipment". (See: Lastwords, SIERRA magazine, November -December, 1997) p. 8.

How much did Big Oil influence the 2010 elections to get Republicans elected? Well, they reported over $27 million in lobbying expenditures in 2009 and the best estimates are that this figure was doubled leading up to the November, 2010 elections that put so many anti-global warming Repukes into office.

The bottom line here is that people hold the choices not only in terms of our energy choices, but our political choices. Just bear in mind that in proportion to your fossil fuel addiction the fossil fuel empire will benefit and their interests are not the same as yours, and their welfare is not yours. The more and better choices you make to advance alternative fuels and an alternative energy consciousness, including conservation, the more they can be kept at bay.

And it doesn't take working at an oil company to figure that out!