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When thousands of people donate no more than $100 per person per election, we can build a campaign without money from special interests. _______________________ But it's about more than money. We need your energy and your enthusiasm, too. Sign up to volunteer on Jim Hansen's campaign for Congress.
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Rising oil prices are price we are paying for Congress's addiction to oil money
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Location: Blogs Jim's Blog |
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| Posted by: Jim Hansen |
4/21/2006 |
Congress is passively watching oil prices increase. Years of inaction to encourage a diversified energy policy has been fueled by massive campaign contributions from the oil companies. Ordinary people are paying the price at the pump. During the Reagan years, we had a windfall profits tax. More people are saying it is time to bring it back so we have the resources to support investment in alternatives.
Tyson Slocum, the acting director of Public Citizen's energy program points out that since January, 2001, oil prices have increased 240 percent. This week, energy traders pushed crude oil above $70 a barrel which means we can expect to pay a lot more for all of the things that are made from oil, including from gasoline, home heating oil, plastics, airline tickets (b/c of jet fuel), food and other consumer goods (b/c of transportation costs). The vast majority of Idahoans who make modest and low incomes pay an ever-greater share of their incomes on costs associated with high energy prices.
Slocum notes that it’s not just the Saudi royal family that gets rich when speculators drive up the price of oil; ExxonMobil has enjoyed profits of $110 billion since 2001. While it costs ExxonMobil about $20 to extract a barrel of oil, the company is selling that oil to the American people for $70/barrel. That explains why ExxonMobil and other oil companies are posting the biggest profits in our economy’s history.
Faced with record profits by oil companies, the economic hardship that creates for working families and the toll that burning fossil fuels has on the environment, one might assume that Congress is taking action. Wrong. Slocum explains that the energy bill that Congress passed last summer is the most expensive energy legislation in our nation’s history but much of what it spends - $5 billion in new tax breaks and government programs - benefit oil companies.
This is a big topic of discussion in Idaho and more and more people are suggesting it is time to restore the windfall profits tax on oil companies that was in effect from 1980-88. Congress does not have much choice since it has allowed our nation's deficit to grow so massivley. Slocum's organization is one of the groups encouraging this. They suggest this is a good way to generate resources to finance clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels, increased investment in mass transit, bigger incentives to individuals and small businesses for energy efficiency and enforcing stronger fuel economy standards.
These ideas are not new. They certainly are being talked about by ordinary people who are paying the bills. These ideas are on the table - the kitchen table of every taxpayer or the conference table of every small business - but they have not been on the table in Congress because of the fear of what it might do to oil company campaign funds going into an election year.
He who pays the piper, calls the tune...
Read Slocum's full article here. It is worth pondering, especially since people in states like Idaho are paying so much more due to the distances we must travel to do our work.
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