Oil Industry Apologists Declare ‘We Like Oil,’ ‘Be Thankful,’ ‘Don’t Blame Oil’
Oil Industry Apologists Declare ‘We Like Oil,’ ‘Be Thankful,’ ‘Don’t Blame Oil’
Following a contentious Congressional hearing on record gas prices this week in which oil executives defended their record profits by saying they “are working darned hard,” apologists for the oil industry are attempting to convince people not to invest in a sustainable future.
Mark Davis, substituting for Rush Limbaugh on the Limbaugh radio show, claimed Congressman Ed Markey was “raping these guys rhetorically” at an “obscene” hearing. Davis defends the oil industry:
And all these guys are trying to do is get us more oil because we like oil. Everybody wants to run our cars on baby shampoo or cornpone or whatever. Well, if, if a car’s developed that works the same way, runs the same way, has the same horsepower then maybe we’ll think about that. Until then alternative fuels will remain a fringe pursuit.
Listen:
That’s not quite “all these guys are trying to do.” The oil industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Congress, front groups, and public relations campaigns to block any policies that would lessen our reliance on oil or worse, reduce their tax breaks and government subsidies.
Glenn Beck used his CNN soapbox to tell America, “Be thankful for big oil,” and offered an almost entirely incoherent defense of the companies, admitting that they “make a lot of cash” but that they “get ambulances to the hospital” because of capitalism’s incentives. In Beck’s world, oil companies don’t just need record profits and multi-billion-dollar tax breaks — they should also be getting more gratitude from the American people. He goes on to attack the government:
I’ve yet to see what our government does for us with their rather large chunk of each gallon of gas we buy, and I’ve yet to see them offer to return it or suggest a gas-tax-windfall-tax-tax.
Beck’s inability to “see what our government does for us” is simply evidence of willful blindness. Our government plows all revenues from the federal gas tax into highway and mass transit maintenance and development. And “their rather large chunk” in fact isn’t– as the price of crude oil has skyrocketed but the federal gas tax has remained unchanged, the amount of a dollar of gas that goes to the government has plummeted from 32 cents in 2000 to 13 cents today.
American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Red Cavaney used a USA Today column to tell Americans: “Don’t blame oil companies.” Cavaney also argues that the Democratic plan to roll back billions in oil-company tax breaks to pay for renewable energy incentives that are under the threat of expiring this year, putting “$19 billion of investment and 116,000 jobs in the US at risk.” This plan has been filibustered repeatedly in the Senate by Big Oil’s allies, most recently by a single vote:
These taxes would move us in the wrong direction by taking away income that could be reinvested in more oil and gas.
Caveney is literally arguing that it is the “wrong direction” to take money from oil and gas development and give it to people willing to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency — reducing our addiction to fossil fuels. The only ones for whom that is the wrong direction are the oil companies themselves, who seem determined to drill faster to climate catastrophe.
4 Responses to “Oil Industry Apologists Declare ‘We Like Oil,’ ‘Be Thankful,’ ‘Don’t Blame Oil’”
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It does seem we like oil. While riding my bike or while at the bus stop I see an overwhelming number of people driving large, low gas mileage vehicles with no passengers. Also, I have only seen 2 homes in my neighborhood (one being mine) that have solar PV and we are the only ones with solar hot water. I hope I don’t sound sanctimonious, that is not my intent. Until we all take the right steps, it will be “business” as usual.
April 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm“These taxes would move us in the wrong direction by taking away income that could be reinvested in more oil and gas”.What is so wrong with this statement is saying in my opinon is a blackmailing of the gov`t by big oil.Why not use your record PROFITS instead of tax rebates and subsidies for the future of bio fuels and solar and wind energy.and the HOT AIR these guys expel from their BLOATED EGO`S.If they cut the price of gasoline in half people they still would have record profits and people would have extra cash to put into the economy, imagine that!!
April 5th, 2008 at 1:43 pmIt`s all about keeping the little guy down and squeezing the life out of us and our families.
I watched the hearing on the web, and the only obscene thing about it was the arguments of the oil executives. To be fair, some were a little better than others; BP and Shell have made token contributions to the development of renewables, and they CLAIM to support cap-and-trade legislation (of course, talking out of the other side of their mouth you hear that they are also members of the American Petroleum Institute which is unequivocally AGAINST cap-and-trade). But the Exxon guy was definitely the most audacious of all of them; Big Oil gets billions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives every year, and how much does he think renewables should get? NONE. “The market should decide” what energy sources we’ll use, according to him! It’s not surprising that he would argue such a position but it’s still the sort of disgusting hypocrisy that can make your blood boil.
April 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pmHonestly, things don’t look good for the renewable energy bills in Congress right now, and I wish more Americans would wake up to what is going on and demand that our lawmakers find the guts to make the right decisions.
Waiting for the slaves of public interest elected neoconism in this empire to develop courage would be like waiting for postmodernists of any stripe to learn “realism” in concepts. Don’t hold your breath.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:07 pmWhat did these bloated corporate oil-guzzling thieves do to ‘earn” record profits? Nothing. What do they work hard at except skimming off the top?
If they were paid out of profits, then they could seell the product for a “decent” price and earn some extra instead of it being handed to them by a non-monitoring government of liars and brainwashing frauds.
As for the asinine argument about a marketplace controlling transportation, the players in that non-marketplace are the totalitarian public-interest imperial president of the U.S., tsaristic pseudo-religious oil shiek-absolutists, the international oil cartels and their thieving CEOs, the fellow on the corner who tries to run a gas station and you and I as rightless, forgotten victims.
No one could perhaps be stupid enough to call these ravening monsters “companies”–that would mean they’d have to pay their employees decently, pay themselves sparingly and expect to make the non-system work off “profits earned end-results created–wherein one had a choice.
These neo-fascosts are using the same argument used to keep ethical; normatives and those capable of writing about them off television–the same one they’re using about oil.
“If you don’t like what’s on, you can turn off the set.” Does that sound like achoice? To me it sounds like a choking censorship over human rights, talent and definitions being run by corwadly little ‘rats” afraid of competition.
To hell with any country whose people are so stupid as not to know this is a bureaucracy-ridden sick joke, and no form of capitalism at all. Next they’ll be telling us that there’s an election going on. But no one would lend credence to such a tyrannical absurdity. Or would they?