This is some crazy stuff here!

Cantor recently told the Star-Exponent that energy independence will take "World War II-like collaboration," but that doesn't stop him from trying to convince voters that their high gas prices are due to Democrats' reluctance to drill off the coasts or in Alaska. That's not what I'd call collaborating.

But his record only shows allegiance to Big Oil rather than alternative energy. He voted against higher-mileage (CAFE) standards for new cars. He voted against tax incentives to promote the development of renewable energy, biofuels and renewable fuels in 2007 and 2008.

Looking at his long list of auto and oil industry donors may give a hint why he has resisted policies to wean us off oil.

By the way, these comments could just as easily apply to Virgil Goode, Thelma Drake, and Frank Wolf as they do to Eric Cantor.  

Who's to blame for high oil prices?  We are.  Republicans represent constituents.  And has the public been banging down the doors of Congress demanding these things?  No.  Do these things top the public's agenda?  Economic forces that every individual in this country participates in created the situation we are in today.

Point out to me a landmark piece of legislation like what you are proposing that did not have its genesis in a mass movement.  Did the EPA get created out of the forward thinking and kindheartedness of Richard Nixon and the Congress of that time?  

It takes two to tango, Lowell, this is not a one-sided equation.  

As far as tax breaks, let's just support Representative Charles Rangel's effort to eliminate a range of corporate tax breaks rather than singling out one industry.

It is not like the U.S. is going through this oil crisis for the first time. It happened in the 1970s, and it is a well known fact that oil is non renewable.

The attacks on 9-11 actually created a perfect moment for our leadership to advance fuel efficiency. McCain, back when he was not the sorry feeble man that he is today, was right for asking for greater fuel efficiency and other measures to break the dependency on oil.

Of course, we can't count on Bush to do anything about this. For all practical purposes, an oil junta has been running White House energy policies for the last 8 years.

The failure in Congress was terrible. Here was a concrete way that the then Republican Congress could have secured the U.S. and improve the environment at the same time. They caved to Bush and the oil industry instead.

With that out of my system, I do agree with you that this is a two way street.  If the people don't push the government, the government probably isn't going to do what the general population wants.  Then again, if it were up to the general public we'd be opening drilling offshore and dumping the SPR and all sorts of idiotic non-solutions.  Tough call, but your point is well taken - the public needs to get more involved, push our leaders, and replace them if they don't respond.

For tax breaks, wasn't this industry singled out a few years ago when the Republicans cut their taxes?  At the very least, they should be singled out to undo this big oil give away.  As for new windfall profits taxes I do agree with Rangel's approach.  And without that, I hope he succeeds in eliminating some of those tax breaks.  

In a nutshell, big oil should get hit twice - the first is undoing a tax break they should never have received (so that really shouldn't count as a hit) and second they should get lose tax breaks along with a number of other corporations.

As to the profit, big deal, I say.  You know who is making tons more money on oil that makes Exxon look rather small: State-run oil companies.  But they are not regulated by the SEC, they are not public issuers in the U.S.  Their record setting intake does not make business news.  And you aren't singling out Aramco to say that Republicans are lining their pockets.

Lots of businesses get specific tax breaks geared towards their industry in the tax code.  It's not just the oil & gas industries.  And oil & gas are not the biggest beneficiaries of government largesse.  If we are hitting one, hit them all.  I'm against all forms of manipulation of the corporate tax code to favor or punish specific industries or corporations.  If we want to give a hand-out to everyone, their is MACRS for that.

The Corrupting Influence Of Oil Money

The world has never looked better for the Big Five oil companies. This morning, Exxon Mobil, the world's largest corporation, announced its "second-quarter profit rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, the highest-ever profit by an American company. Exxon broke its own record." Joining Exxon Mobil as the only oil companies to "earn more than $10 billion in a single quarter, Royal Dutch Shell said its profit rose to $11.56 billion." ConocoPhillips and BP last week reported their "massive second-quarter profits." The fifth oil major, Chevron, will release its earnings report tomorrow. Yesterday, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced "a new five-year leasing plan for offshore oil drilling" to give oil companies a "head start" on attacking protected waters, should the Congress follows President Bush, who recently lifted the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling "first issued by his father in 1990." Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) described Kempthorne's announcement as a "Going Out of Business Sale" on behalf of Big Oil. The unprecedented profits for Big Oil come at the expense of practically everyone else in the form of a collapsing economy, international instability, rampant commodity inflation, and deadly climate change. However, Big Oil's windfall has also meant largesse -- and criminal levels of corruption -- for some in Washington.

RECORD PRICES, RECORD PROFITS: Since 2001, gasoline prices have more than doubled, and oil companies have made more than half a trillion dollars in profits. The price of oil has surged from below $30 a barrel to over $125, a fourfold increase. The Big Five oil companies could make a "projected $168 billion in profits" this year alone. The United States has only two percent of the world's oil reserves but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. "At current oil prices," conservative oil man T. Boone Pickens argued, "we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone." If we continue on the same path for the next ten years, "the cost will be $10 trillion -- it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind," he added. The surging price of oil is due in part to demand growing faster than supply, but also to factors such as "the war in Iraq and the value of the dollar" and unregulated, Enron-like speculation. Instead of investing in 21st century energy, the oil companies are plowing most of their profits into stock buybacks, a windfall for their rich investors.

OIL'S GIFTS: In a "state-shattering tremor in an earthquake of change in Alaska politics," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) "was charged on Tuesday with concealing more than $250,000 worth of gifts, including home renovations, that he received from an Alaska oil services company," VECO Corp, "the top Alaska-based contributor to federal politics for at least five election cycles." The federal indictment "accuses Stevens, a former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and the longest-serving Republican senator ever, of using his position and office in the Senate on behalf of VECO between 2001 and 2006." Uncle Ted's indictment represents the culmination of a multiyear oil corruption scandal of  Alaska's "bullying, nepotistic political culture": five state legislators (including Stevens's son Ben), four other officials, and Alaska's congressman Don Young (R) have also been implicated for their involvement with VECO CEO Bill Allen (Allen once told a state lawmaker, "I own your ass").  Over his career, Stevens has funneled over ten million dollars from his oil-funded war chest to other conservative politicians. Politicians who benefited from the $340,000 in campaign contributions from Ted Stevens's Northern Lights PAC this year alone are being pressured to return the money. Senate conservatives met yesterday to fill the positions vacated by Stevens, whose indictment forced him to give up "his plum committee posts."

MCCAIN'S EMBRACE: On June 13, 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared, "I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil." Since then, McCain's tenor on Big Oil  has completely changed, now championing the views of "oil executives." "My friends, we have to drill offshore. We have to do it. ... The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?" he said recently. McCain's reversal took place on June 16, when he headed to Texas for oil-sponsored fundraisers and "declared support for offshore drilling." In the following month, his campaign's embrace of a Big Oil agenda has grown tighter. The campaign arranged an oil-field photo shoot after McCain had to cancel a planned visit to an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico because of a hurricane and an "untimely" oil spill. And Big Oil has embraced McCain, now that he has climbed aboard the Big Oil express. The day after his speech, "McCain raised $1.3 million at a closed-door luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club." The Washington Post reported recently, "Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June. ... Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May."

State run oil companies?  C'mon, you know that's outside of what our government can reasonably manage.  I'm not saying they're any better than Exxon (et al), they're worse.  But we can't do much about them.  Maybe shake them down for protection money, but that's about it.  

What is the right amount of profit?  Monsanto is making tons of money thanks to high food prices.  That's a windfall.  How much of Monsanto's profit should we appropriate?  And you realize with Exxon the 11+ billion is worldwide income?  Are we appropriating from the 11 billion total or just the U.S. total?

State run oil companies, of course, who do you think caused oil prices to drop to $11 a barrel in the 90s?  That was Saudi Aramco's doing.  We should only demonize U.S. companies that are subject to U.S. regulation?  Especially, when U.S. companies aren't even the biggest players in this game.  You're right, we don't have direct control over them.  That shouldn't free them from your wrath if you are eager to beat up those who profit from oil.

In the meantime, I'd suggest a windfall profits tax, with the proceeds going towards our effort to get us off of oil. That would give the oil companies a decade or more to transition into being energy companies - like BP talks about "Beyond Petroleum" - instead of purely oil companies.

Now, let's here YOUR ideas, since you seem so concerned about protecting Exxon Mobil and Big Oil in general.  This should be fascinating.

I don't see Exxon as a bad guy here.  They have a business to run and they are running it.  They happen to be in the right place at the right time.  But they are not the root of all evil.  They didn't cause any of the crises we are in right now.  Nor did Republicans alone.  We were all participants in it, we all share blame.  We will all either be part of the problem continuing or part of the solution.

I've made my point clear on what I think we should do.  I don't agree with a "windfall" profits tax because it is arbitrary and applied in a discriminatory fashion.  I like Charles Rangel's solution to eliminate a great deal of corporate tax breaks across the board.

As to solving the energy issue, I think we need a coordinated, bipartisan response.  That will mean phasing us off oil over the course of the next 10-15 years.  But before we can do any of that we need a broad base of public support (which would be rank and file Republicans as well as rank and file Democrats).  That broad support from the public will get politicians of both parties to act.

I think it wastes a whole lot of energy to focus on ExxonMobil.  Like environmentalists push to get them removed as a sponsor at the National's Stadium.  It's a distraction from solving the problem.

BP, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil alone have given $20 million to Republican candidates for federal office. Do you think that might sway Republicans away from "representing constituents"?

Exxon Mobil has pumped millions into global warming denier groups. Do you think that might affect "the public been banging down the doors of Congress demanding these things"?

Exxon Mobil will spend more on advertising this year alone than it's spent on renewable energy research the last decade combined. Do you think that might alter "the public's agenda"?

When the corporations buy the politicians and pull the wool over the public's eyes, no wonder the system is then rigged to benefit Big Oil, which gets tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies while clean energy gets the shaft.

I've seen Exxon's ads, you really think these are going to influence the public to not demand a transition away from oil?  I'd say Exxon would need to try harder if that was the goal.

There is plenty of information, a sea of it, to counter Exxon's attempts to deny global-warming.  People can access this information at any time to develop an informed opinion on the topic.  The American public is made of adults, can we not trust their judgment?  I think Al Gore's movie received a lot more circulation than the groups that get funding from Exxon.

ExxonMobil is an integrated oil company.  They don't spend money on renewables.  That's not the business they are in.  They have made the decision to focus solely on their core operations that they have the most expertise in.  Lee Raymond made that decision long ago, and it is part of the reason they outperform their peer group.  They could diversify, and I hope that Rex will take them in that direction.  But if not, oh well!  Then they just slowly die off and the capital is redirected somewhere else in the economy.

As to the system in which they operate, we're a democracy.  We can change that system at any time.  We have chosen not to.  Our love affair with the car and big houses and suburbia all of the things that created the situation we are in today, that was all us.  Nobody was complaining when cities like Atlanta, D.C., Boston, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, Las Vegas, etc... took off.  Nobody was complaining when America fell in love with the SUV.  I say nobody, I mean the public-at-large.  The Big Oil companies were not orchestrating this behind the scenes like some evil puppeteer.

If you need scapegoat to focus your rage to achieve something productive, fine.  But let's call it what it is.

As I recall, when oil prices dropped in the 80s after their spike, the public lost interest in fuel efficiency and alternatives.  People stopped flocking to economy cars.  Did Republicans cause the drop in oil prices that diverted the public's attention elsewhere?  Was there some grand conspiracy to manipulate the price to continue our addiction?

You want a solution.  You are going to need Republicans.  Blaming this crisis on them is: one, not completely their fault; and two, does not help bring them into the solution.  Politicians of all stripes were a part of the creation of the situation we are in today.  Have you heard of Mary Landrieu?

On June 13, 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared, "I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil." Since then, McCain's tenor on Big Oil  has completely changed, now championing the views of "oil executives." "My friends, we have to drill offshore. We have to do it. ... The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?" he said recently.

For more, see here.

Both parties have outliers. It doesn't make 99% of Democrats any less right and 99% of Republicans any less wrong.

And by the way, you will also need Mary Landrieu if you hope to have 60 vote majority to steamroller through a non-bipartisan solution.

I'm not reluctant to criticize oil companies.  I am reluctant to demonize them.  The people who work for and run these organization are not evil.  They are not demons.  They may have different views on what to do about it.  But that doesn't make them bad or deserving of eternal damnation.

Never mind how correct she is, this comment is going to be used in sarcastic political joke after sarcastic political joke. So far as the average American driver is concerned, Pelosi is a sick, fancy-dancy elitist from San Francisco who stonewalls the poor worker's desperate need for affordable gasoline so he can get to work (and the shopping mall, amd school, and sporting events, and vacations, etc). Why, oh why did this tone deaf comment ever get made? She, and Harry Reid as well, have blown an outstanding opportunity to make sarcastic comments of their own about Republicans' blocking an honest, effective energy policy providing real relief to average Americans, not to mention the Republicans' blocking real relief for lower income consumers, etc. I'm sure if we thought about it, as I would hope Pelosi did before opening her mouth, there are plenty of pithy, telling Democratic sound bites that could have been issued and repeated ad nauseum.

News flash for Democratic politicians: the average voters does not really care much about global warming when his essential travelling/commuting is also an issue. He's not even totally convinced global warming is an issue ("it's all just politics") and he also believes oil is a national security issue whose importance excuses preemptive war, too... keep that in mind, you airy fairy Obamaniacs. Heh.  

Perhaps the only thing more outrageous than Exxon Mobil making record profits while Americans are paying record prices at the pump is the fact that Senator McCain has proposed giving them an additional $1.2 billion tax break. While Senator McCain's plan has succeeded in helping his campaign raise over $1 million from oil and gas company executives and employees just last month, it won't lower gas prices or end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. Instead of an energy policy that reads like an oil-company wish list, it's time to create a new American energy economy by investing in alternative energy, creating millions of new jobs, increasing fuel efficiency standards, and ending the tyranny of oil once and for all," said Senator Barack Obama.

Exactly - thank you, Senator Obama!  

As Bush Fights for Big Oil, Exxon Mobil Puts Profits at $1,485 a Second
NWF: "We Can't Drill and Burn Our Way Out of Our Energy Crisis"

WASHINGTON, DC (July 31, 2008) - ExxonMobil reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion today, the largest quarterly profit ever by any American corporation. On May 29, BNET.com reported Exxon Mobil plans to invest just $10 million this year in renewable energy.

Additionally, on July 22 the Associated Press reported, "The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy."

Adam Kolton, the National Wildlife Federation's senior director of congressional and federal affairs, said today:

"Just one day after President Bush renewed his demand for Congress to turn over more of America's natural resources to Big Oil, Exxon Mobil reports the largest quarterly profit in America's history, an amazing $1,485.55 per second. Let there be no mistake where that profit came from - the pockets of American drivers, the victims of a vicious circle. Our government gives America's public lands and waters to Big Oil. Big Oil extracts the oil and consumers are forced to buy it because they have no other choice of alternative technologies or fuels - it's buy what Big Oil is selling or walk to work. Big Oil takes that money and invests that money not in cheaper, cleaner renewable energy, but in stock buybacks and dividends.

"Now President Bush wants to start the circle again, asking Big Oil to bail us out of our energy crisis. If you're trying to quit smoking, you don't ask the Marlboro Man for help, and if you're serious about quitting your oil addiction, you don't ask Big Oil for help.

"Don't be fooled by the big lie. We can't drill and burn our way out of our energy crisis. It's failed Americans again and again while delivering record profits for oil companies. We need clean energy solutions to break America's addiction to oil, give consumers real energy choices, recharge our economy and help solve global warming."

Learn more about the real solutions that would cut our energy costs and ease our addiction to fossil fuels in the National Wildlife Federation's Don't be Fooled fact sheet.

The National Wildlife Federation is America's largest conservation organization inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children's future.