Free Republic

NOTWITHSTANDING a shift by big business to become more socially responsible, Big Oil prides itself in being an island of bullheadedness and smugness. In a capitalist system, rewards of success go to shareholders. But Big Oil has virtually ignored an equally important constituency - the citizens of the United States - who have granted Big Oil the right to extract the nation's most strategic natural resources. In return, they expect them to act as responsible fiduciaries. ... Read the rest of this drivel at the link...

Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies,...

Congressional Democrats now have their unified response to increasing calls for oil exploration in Alaska and in the waters off our shores: The energy companies, they say, are already sitting on plenty of oil, refusing to recover it. But is that true? “Energy companies are not producing oil or gas on 68 million acres of federal land under their control,” claims Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat. “The fact of the matter is Congress has already allowed oil companies to drill, but those companies are refusing to drill because they want to lock up as much federal land as...

*** National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President Wednesday June 9 5:00PM Kwik Trip Station, Corner of Civic Center Drive and 11th Ave NW (in Rochester) Sponsored by Moveon.org This Wednesday, we're pushing back with our National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President. We'll be gathering at gas stations around the country to reach out to voters and make sure they know John McCain is Big Oil's candidate and that he won't solve our energy crisis. Can you join the event in Rochester? Host: Lyle A.—fellow MoveOn member Where: Kwik Trip Station, Corner of Civic Center Drive and...

You would think that this story is right out of science fiction. But the facts appear to be that the US Democrat-controlled Congress intends to destroy the Republican middle class with $11 per gallon gasoline. The Democrats’ base -- wealthy white “limousine liberals”, and very poor people -- won’t be harmed, but the families who live in suburbia will be devastated. The multi-millionaires like billionaire Senators John Kerry & Jay Rockefeller, financial speculator George Soros, filmmaker Michael Moore, and actors George Clooney & Meg Ryan can easily pay for their auto and private jet fuel. Poor people are forced to...

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production." Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that? Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra...

To their everlasting horror, the global-warming alarmists have discovered that ExxonMobil advertises with the Washington Nationals. This act of free enterprise cannot go unpunished, so the global-warming alarmists have initiated a campaign to educate the Lerner family and baseball-supporting public in the hope the Nationals will end their relationship with ExxonMobil. It is unclear whether the global-warming alarmists walked to the ballpark from their homes, took mass transportation or drove there in an automobile. That, of course, is often the rub with the global-warming zealots. They talk a good game if it concerns you, your neighbor and the person down...

Didn't you just know this was coming? A consortium of Western oil companies — the very definition of Big Oil — is on the verge of receiving no-bid contracts in Iraq, giving them access to one of the most sought-after prizes in the petroleum industry, according to The New York Times. Can it be mere coincidence that the leading companies in the deal — ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Total — are the very same companies that Saddam Hussein threw out when he nationalized the Iraqi oil industry more than three decades ago? The American public has been reassured, repeatedly, that...

The Texas oil man discusses the oil-futures market investigation, Yahoo, the presidential election and his wind investments.

So, you hate "big oil" and the soaring gasoline prices they are forcing on you? You've bought into the Democrats and Republicrats rhetoric about greed and "unjustified" profits, and you can't wait for someone to be elected president and get even with those evil corporate robber barons that are profiting at your expense. Well before you get all excited about tearing down the energy industry, stop and think for a moment about what makes your comfortable life possible. Your heat and most of your electricity are provided through the burning of oil and natural gas. The thousands of plastic items...

Recent huge spikes in oil prices are "crazy" and unrelated to supply and demand fundamentals as world markets are adequately supplied with crude, the United Arab Emirates energy minister said on Tuesday. Still, the OPEC member would be pleased to join in a meeting with oil-consuming countries to discuss runaway prices because they are hurting economies, Mohammed al-Hamli said. Saudi Arabia will host such a gathering later this month. "There is no shortage of crude oil in the market. Inventory levels are huge," Hamli said after speaking at a conference in Canada. On Friday, US crude jumped $10.75 to a...

If you’re wondering who owns “Big Oil,” chances are good the answer is “you do.” If you have a mutual fund account, and 55 million U.S. households do, there’s a good chance it invests in oil and natural gas stocks. If you have an IRA or personal retirement account, and 45 million U.S households do, there’s a good chance it invests in energy stocks. It’s a common misperception that oil executives are the only benefactors of industry success. Instead, the bulk of ‘Big Oil’ benefactors are hardworking men and women across America who boost their retirement portfolios through oil and...

If didn't know better, I would think the Democrats are really trying to lose this election. First they offered up the cap and trade global warming bill in the Senate that was quickly withdrawn when they realized what a debacle they were creating for themselves. Then this week they planned to use a windfall profits tax to vilify the oil companies and distract the public from their negligence and malfeasance for failing to enact laws and make policies to encourage the production and distribution of the life-blood of the nation- oil. Congress has repeatedly failed to produce legislation to that would lead to more meaningful energy...

Who owns 'Big Oil?' It's not who you think. A recent study finds that ownership of oil and natural gas company shares is made up of a broad cross section of Americans. "This study disproves the popular misconception that 'Big Oil' is owned by a small group of industry insiders. In reality, across the oil and natural gas industry only 1.5 percent of shares of public companies are owned by company executives," said study author Robert J. Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton. "The data show that ownership of industry shares is broadly middle class,...

WASHINGTON - Record high prices for gasoline probably won't drop before the November election, Republican John McCain said Wednesday.

It’s pretty amazing how Sen. McCain has the ability to make me proud and drive me crazy, simultaneously. In this discussion with Matt Lauer, McCain talks about the necessity to explore and initiate the transition to alternative sources of energy. I wholeheartedly agree with the need to break free from the dependency on foreign oil, as many do, but still don’t buy the man made global warming thing. I’m beginning to get pretty uneasy about Sen. McCain’s rhetoric on the matter, in fact, but I’m still going to back him because handing our country over to Barack would be a...

July 4th is America’s Independence Day, yet we are grossly dependant on foreign oil because the “Environmentally Ill” say that oil harvesting is a danger to wildlife. However, other countries drill for oil and it’s apparently OK for us to purchase and consume their “blood” oil. Unless American wildlife and habitats are superior, then isn't it all the same? If habitats are being harmed because of drilling, why not keep it close to home, so we can monitor, lobby, legislate and otherwise regulate it to death. Oh... sorry, we already to that. But at least the United States ...

McCain in NC says that he would consider windfall profits for oil companies.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming. GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly. The Democratic energy package would have imposed...

Home / Globe / Opinion / Op-ed Derrick Z. Jackson Getting Big Oil to feel our pain Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Derrick Z. Jackson May 27, 2008 AGAIN, the oily executives of black gold told Congress it gouges Americans to the least extent possible. Again, senators and representatives wagged their fingers at them. Representative Maxine Waters of California told the executives to "share the pain." Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida told them, "I'm a mom of three young children who filled up her minivan the other day for $68 . . . Maybe that's not real...

... Democrat Representative Maxine Waters experienced a Freudian slip and uttered the secret fraternity password that identifies her Party. She spoke the word all members of her party know must be hidden from every rational thinking citizen. While addressing oil executives during a House hearing on May 22, 2008 Waters threatened to nationalize the oil industry if it failed to do something to stop the ever-escalating price of gasoline at the pumps. In a harsh exchange with Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, the California congresswoman demanded that oil companies guarantee consumer prices will fall if drilling is allowed off U.S....

Investor's Business Daily -- In 2006 alone, according to the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. oil companies paid some $138 billion in taxes to the IRS — and that doesn't include special oil severance, sales and use taxes companies also had to pay. Internal Revenue Service (Table 6, p. 41) -- In 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available), the bottom 75% of all individual taxpayers (about 100 million taxpayers out of 132 million total) paid about $130.9 billion in income taxes. Adjusting by the recent average of about $5 billion in annual increases in tax revenue from...

I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not." Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I...

"And guess what this member* would be all about? This member would be all about socializing — er, uh. [Pauses for several moments] …. would be about … [pause] … basically … taking over, and the government running all of your companies.” The brilliant leftist, Maxine Waters!

Q:   Does the government really make more in taxes from the sale of a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies do? A: Possibly. Both taxes and profits account for a large share, but which is larger depends on too many unknown factors to allow for a clear answer. Let’s start with the basics. According to the Energy Information Administration, in February 2008 state and federal excise taxes accounted for 13 percent of the average price per gallon of regular gasoline sold in the U.S. That figures to just under 40 cents per gallon as a national average....

Energy: Senate Democrats, dragging executives from five major U.S. oil companies before them for a second day, say they're alarmed by our "failed" oil markets. What they should be is ashamed.After all, it's mostly the fault of the Congress that we're in this mess. True, the Big 5 announced profits of $36 billion in the first quarter, as oil breached $100 a barrel and just kept going. This prompted nothing but contempt from Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin this week: "Where is your corporate conscience?" he asked the oil executives, forced to sit and listen. Others concluded that this must be...

The Washington Post finds McCain adviser Charlie Black’s work lobbying for various third world governments and an anti-Communist rebel group from 1985 to 1994 worth a front page story. Also, starting today, MoveOn.org "will air a national advertisement on CNN urging McCain to fire Charlie Black, a top adviser who has been a longtime lobbyist; McCain and Black have said that Black retired from lobbying in March." Okay. Fine. I think it's stupid to try to purge every campaign of anyone who has ever lobbied, since most campaign and political professionals need work in non-campaign years, and one of the...

With gas prices topping four dollars a gallon in some regions of the country, now may not be the best time to say something positive about "big oil," but here goes anyway. Where is it written that the cost for a product or service should be frozen in place and in time, never to rise again, or to rise at a pace commensurate with our incomes? People who think this way know little to nothing about supply and demand and less than nothing about the profit motive. That's because at least three generations have been raised on the notion of...

For fear of oil spills, as of 2008, the U.S. federal government and various states ban drilling in thousands upon thousands of square miles off the U.S. coast. These areas, primarily on the outer Continental Shelf, hold an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This leaves America's energy needs increasingly at the mercy of foreign autocrats, despots, and maniacs. All the while worldwide demand for oil ratchets ever and ever upward. At times you'd swear that Che Guevara's bloody lesson (not to mention Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot's) has yet to sink...

Exxon Mobil recently posted the biggest-ever annual profit for a U.S. company at $40.6 billion dollars. Outrageous — they gasp — consumers are obviously being gouged by Big Oil. Let’s look at the facts. First of all, just who is “Big Oil?” Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron Texaco, Conoco Phillips? Wrong! It’s the government-controlled national oil companies of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Russia, Brazil, China, etc. In fact, the privately held Western oil companies that most people associate with “Big Oil” control less than 6 percent of the world’s reserves. Do these companies set the price...

Press Release By John Foster - May 06, 2008 Walt Minnick today offered Idaho drivers low-cost gasoline to call attention to the abject failure of Washington, D.C. to address our nation’s energy crisis. He also slammed Bill Sali for his cozy relationship with “big oil.” “For one hour today, while I’m talking to Idahoans about the high cost of gasoline, Bill Sali will sit down to lunch at a fundraiser and ask for money from oil lobbyists,” Minnick said. “In 18 months he’s become a true Washington insider. What Idaho needs is a new approach and some simple fairness.” Oil...

...Mr. Obama supports most of those "no drilling" rules, but that hasn't stopped him from denouncing high gas prices on the campaign trail. He is running TV ads in North Carolina that show him walking through a gas station and declaring that he'll slap a tax on the $40 billion in "excess profits" of Exxon Mobil. ...Exxon's profits are soaring with the recent oil price spike, but the energy industry's earnings aren't as outsized as the politicians seem to think. Thomson Financial calculates that profits from the oil and natural gas industry over the past year were 8.3% of investment,...

In the first quarter, Exxon-Mobil earned $10.9 billion, but at the same time paid a total of $29.3 billion in taxes...

Stand Up to big Oil -- 04/30/2008 As energy prices soar and the middle-class continues to shrink, Exxon Mobil has made more profits in the past two years than any other corporation in the history of the world. Last year alone, Exxon Mobil made $40 billion in profits, and rewarded its CEO Rex Tillerson with $21 million in total compensation. (Several years ago they provided their outgoing CEO Lee Raymond with a $400 million retirement package). Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP also have posted record profits. In fact, the five largest oil companies in this country have made $595 billion...

WILKES-BARRE – U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski said it’s time for America to stand up to the big oil companies and shout out, “We’ve had enough.” Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, was in town Monday to announce his introduction of House Resolution 5800, the Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008. The bill, introduced on the House floor April 15, would allow the federal government to tax windfall oil and gas profits resulting from historically high oil and gas prices that average Americans struggle to afford, he said. The 12-term incumbent acknowledged his proposal and four similar ones in the House of Representatives...

A geologist who estimated the Bakken formation in western North Dakota has far more oil than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge died before other scientists could authenticate his study. Leigh Price, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, published a study in 1999 that estimates the Bakken shales formation, which underlies much of several western and northwestern counties, may hold up to 400 billion barrels of oil. By comparison, the Arctic refuge oil reserve is estimated at 16 billion barrels. Now, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is pushing the federal agency to complete scientific work on Price’s paper as part of...

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant. In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota...

Sun April 13, 2008 Dry hole: Tax would needle average Americans The Oklahoman Editorial WITH apologies to Upton Sinclair and Paul Anderson, when Big Oil is making record profits and gasoline prices are at historic levels, there will be blood. Sinclair authored "Oil!” in 1927. Eighty years later, Anderson released a movie loosely based on the novel. Sinclair's Joe Ross became Anderson's Daniel Plainview, a ruthless wildcatter who'll stop at nothing to bring oil to market. Big Oil's critics, including a slew of Democrats in Washington, will stop at nothing to demonize an industry whose executives are said to be...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- We all want to live in a world that's clean, healthy and prosperous. We all want to hand that world off to our children in slightly better shape than we received it. No one, even the supposedly evil oil executive, has any reason to want anything different. But, for some reason, we find ourselves searching for villains. Surely they exist, but the endless quest to create them sometimes overwhelms our better judgment, whether intentional or not. Congress has picked "Big Oil" as their enemy of the week. These companies inexplicably put profits above people, ravaging the...

Barack Obama’s new ad drags out the usual Democrat boogeyman, “Big Oil.” He says since the ’70s gas crisis, the only thing that has changed is that “Exxon is making $40 billion a year and we are paying $3.50 for gas.” Barack says “Big Oil” will pay a penalty for “windfall profits.” So what are “windfall profits?” It’s a term that is thrown around quite a bit by liberals and I want to make sure everyone understands what they are talking about.

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must...

Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 03/03/2008 Pelosi Statement on Oil Prices Reaching a World Record High Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today as the price of oil reached a world record high of $103.95 per barrel, higher now than in 1980, when adjusted for inflation: “Americans are now paying the price for years of a failed energy policy that has resulted in record energy costs, a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and the rising threat of global warming. The price of a barrel of oil is now four times higher than...

One of America's most influential businessmen, legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens, says the nation's wealth is being plundered by oil exporters and the U.S. faces a potential financial disaster if our energy policy is not reformed. Pickens, who correctly predicted that oil would top $100 a barrel, also says he expects oil prices to drop sharply in the near term. Appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Thursday morning, Pickens pointed out that the U.S. is currently sending half a trillion dollars out of the country each year to buy oil, in some cases from people who "are our enemies." Said Pickens,...

(Katy, TX - Nov. 11) Many environmentalists have long suspected that "Big Oil" pays a small cadre of climate scientists to perform and publish bogus research, as well as spread disinformation regarding the state of the science of global warming and climate change. But according to one administrative assistant who was recently let go from her employer, what is already known by watchdog groups like Greenpeace and ExxonSecrets.org might be just the tip of the iceberg. "Sylvia" (not her real name) told our reporter that her employer, EM Distribution Services, paid her $1,500 a week, in cash, for encrypting and...

TUESDAY, Oct. 16, 2007, 12:14 p.m. By John Diedrich Judge says minimum markup unconstitutional A federal judge in Milwaukee has ruled Wisconsin's minimum markup on gas violates federal anti-trust laws. In his decision, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan wrote that the state's 68-year law that currently mandates a minimum markup of 9.18% is unconstitutional because the state has failed to monitor the system and its formula. The markup is a built-in profit margin for gas stations intended to protect businesses here from predatory pricing by deep-pocketed national chains. The percentage was last adjusted in 1998 when it moved from 6%...

The choice is ours: Big Oil or Chavez? As we wait for emerging energy forms to develop, we should create policies that support oil companies In the coming century, the world will transition from cars that run on liquid fuels to cars that run on something else, perhaps electricity or hydrogen. Until then, we have a choice. Either support the "Big Oil" companies that are SEC and IRS regulated, traded on the major stock exchanges, contribute to our economy and national security, and whose employees are our neighbors, or butt into energy myths and stand by idly (gleefully?) while Hugo...

At a recent press conference Sen. John Kerry was upset as he snarled, "Oil companies in America are reporting record profits. Record profits." When did profit become a dirty word?" I wish the oil executives would face the media. They could say something like: "What are you complaining about? What do you think we do with our profits? Buy fancy cars and homes? Well, we do, actually, but nearly all the money goes to looking for more oil and following environmental rules that you want us to follow. You should want us to make more profit. Anyway, we make less...

Al Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason," has definitively established one fact: Al Gore is still the sorest loser in American politics. Even liberal book reviewers are wincing at the tone of his jeremiad against the Bush administration. The book should have been titled, "They Should Have Elected Me, Instead: How Much Better America Would Fare With President Gore." He seems to believe his own silly "Saturday Night Live" skit from last year, the one in which he pretended to be president and gas was 19 cents a gallon and the budget surplus was $11 trillion. He even implies...

What to do about — choose the adjective — "spiraling," "skyrocketing," "out-of-control" gas prices? .................... A national morning show interviewer practically high-fived the governor of Florida for urging an investigation into "gouging." Meanwhile, over at one of the cable news networks, the "newsman" beat his desk, his chest and anything he could find to express his concern, outrage and downright indignation. The California speaker of the State Assembly said that while he lacked evidence that oil companies engage in cheating, he still felt they did. Why? His gut told him so. In fact, over the last 20 years, 30 federal...

A stiff tax increase and $4-a-gallon fuel could end Americans' addiction to gas-hogging SUVs and curb dependence on OPEC. But don't count on politicians to line up for higher taxes. The average price of a gallon of gas is now above $3. That's affecting some car buyers' choices, as it has done whenever gas prices have spiked in the past two years. But it's still not high enough to spur the needed transformation of the U.S. auto fleet to much higher average fuel economy. And that brings me to gasoline taxes, the one obvious measure that would move the U.S....