In Case You Missed It

From ThinkProgress:

House Republicans voted in lockstep this afternoon to protect corporate welfare for Big Oil, even as they call for draconian cuts to programs that everyday Americans depend on each day. As the House of Representatives moved toward approving a stopgap resolution to avert a government shutdown for another two weeks, Democrats offered a motion to recommit that would have stripped the five largest oil companies of taxpayer subsidies, saving tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. The motion failed on a vote of 176-249, with all Republicans voting against (approximately a dozen Democrats joined the GOP).

From Thomas.gov, here's the description of what happened:

3/1/2011 3:34pm:
DEBATE - The House proceeded with ten minutes of debate on the Keating motion to recommit with instructions. The instructions contained in the motion seek to require the Committee on Appropriations to report the bill back to the House forthwith with an amendment which inserts a section prohibiting the use of funds to be used for tax benefit or relief for any major integrated oil company.

And that's what was voted down. The amendment was to prohibit tax benefits for Big Oil. The Oil Companies, by the way, are doing just fine. Take a look at ExxonMobil. From Climateprogress:

The hearing also focused on the billions of dollars in subsidies granted to profitable oil companies each year. Despite $19 billion in profits in 2009, ExxonMobil escaped the U.S. tax man entirely, finishing the year without paying a single red cent in American corporate income taxes. Unrest in the Middle East is pushing profits for big oil even higher as prices climb up to the $100 per barrel threshold. Subsidies for such a profitable industry make little sense. As Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) lamented, “subsidizing oil companies to drill for oil is like subsidizing a bird to fly or a fish to swim.” Markey also lambasted the oil industry’s claims about its job creation He highlighted that during the past five years, the top five American oil companies fired 10,200 American workers but walked away with $485 billion in profits. [Italics in original]

The link back to Thinkprogress quotes this piece from Forbes.com that originally said:

No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Though ThinkProgress updates:

Forbes has updated its article to include a statement from Exxon: "Though Exxon's financial statement's don't show any net income tax liability owed to Uncle Sam, a company spokesman insists that once its final tax bill is figured, Exxon will owe a 'substantial 2009 tax liability.' How substantial? 'That's not something we're required to disclose, nor do we.'" [emphasis added]

Trust us, they're saying. We pay tons of taxes but we just won't tell you how much. Trust us.

Anyway, back to the roll. Among those 13 Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP (in thinkprogress' words) "to protect corporate welfare for Big Oil" there was a very familiar name.

Congressman Jason Altmire, Democrat from Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District.

J'accuse on neglecting to recuse!

Judge Martin Leach-Cross "Drill, Baby, Drill" Feldman
Did you know that Judge Martin Feldman who overturned Barack Obama's offshore drilling moratorium owns tens of thousands of dollars worth of stock in drilling companies?

Now you do.
.

Tony! Toni! Toné!

The four minute version of BP CEO Tony Hayward's testimony:

BP Chairman: "We care about the small people"

It's not just the tea-baggers who are beyond parody. Witness BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg after today's meeting with President Obama:

"We care about the small people," Svanberg said. "Big oil company people think we don't care, we do care about the small people."

How big of him.
.

" And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day."

Um, President Obama. I think folks are looking for you to be that hand and we're still not seeing it after this speech.

Just saying...
.

No Bailouts for BP Rally Photos/Coverage

KDKA TV video @
http://kdka.com/video/?id=73157@kdka.dayport.com
As mentioned here, there was a rally yesterday in downtown Pittsburgh to protest BP.

The rally was hosted by the local chapters of MoveOn.org, Sierra Club and PennEnvironment.


Mellon Square, Pittsburgh, PA

Unfortunately, my camera is slowly dying and it took forever to "warm up" so no photos of City Paper talk show host Lynn Cullen or KDKA's Jon Delano. But, you can see Lynn interviewed in the link above.

As Lynn said on her show yesterday, she wanted to find some ray of light and so hoped that the BP Oil mega clusterfuck (my phrase, not hers) could be a "teachable moment." She spoke about the co-dependent relationship that we have with oil and how we've made a deal with the devil. She also mentioned an article in this week's City Paper about the dangers of drilling in the Marcellus Shale fields (of which we were all standing above).

It was raining cats and dogs leading up to the rally and for the first ten or fifteen minutes, so kudos to all those who braved the weather.

Randy Francisco, Sierra Club and Robert King, MoveOn
Joy Sabl gets creative as an oil-covered bird

Frack off!
(More photos after the jump)

Stop All Bailouts of BP Rally! Tomorrow in Pgh

WHERE: Mellon Square (the corner of William Penn Place and 6th St., Downtown) 529 - 540 Smithfield St., Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (Map)

WHEN: Wednesday, June 9th, 12:00 PM

WHAT: "Join MoveOn and PennEnvironment in calling on Congress to stop all bailouts of BP and Big Oil with taxpayer money. That means BP, not taxpayers, need to pay every penny to clean up their disaster in the Gulf. In addition, Congress is considering another gift to Big Oil at the public's expense this week by voting to further delaying action on global warming at Big Oil's request. A new report will show that this will cost Pennsylvanians money at the gas pump and increase our dependence on oil, all for the sake of Big Oil's profit margin. We'll also call on Congress to support strong campaign finance and ethics reforms -- so that Congress starts working for the 98% of us who aren't represented by DC lobbyists."

RSVP: Here

Facebook Page: Here

UPDATE: Oil Spill Vigil in Irwin Tonight!
Island by Dunkin Donuts, Route 30 and 10th.
Irwin, PA 15642
Tuesday, June 8th, 7:00 PM
RSVP Here
.

Avert your eyes

Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island
While BP has capped the well, oil is still gushing out. You can view it live here.

You can view more death and destruction that BP doesn't want you to see or hear about here.

Toomey gets big bucks from Halliburton

Via Politico:

As Congress investigated its role in the doomed Deep Horizon oil rig, Halliburton donated $17,000 to candidates running for federal office, giving money to several lawmakers on committees that have launched inquiries into the massive spill.

The Texas-based oil giant’s political action committee made 14 contributions during the month of May, according to a federal campaign report filed Wednesday — 13 to Republicans and one to a Democrat. It was the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008.

Of the 10 current members of Congress who got money from Halliburton in May, seven are on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath.

[snip]

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton's reelection effort. It was Halliburton’s second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate. [Emphasis added]

[snip]

Halliburton made the cement casings on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, and some experts have said the casings contributed to the cause of the disaster. Halliburton, in congressional testimony, has said it followed the orders of BP.

(h/t to Early Returns)

"The Tyranny of Oil" Lecture & Book Signing TONIGHT

. . ANTONIA JUHASZ - Lecture & Book Signing

TONIGHT!

The Tyranny of Oil
Wednesday, November 19, 8pm - free admission
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University Center

Co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon Activities Board, Demilitarize Pittsburgh, Codepink Pittsburgh, WILPF Pittsburgh and others

The hardest-hitting exposé of the oil industry in decades answers today's most pressing energy questions: Why are oil and gasoline prices rising so quickly? Where will prices go in the future? Who's really controlling those prices? How much oil is left? How far will Big Oil go to get it? And at what cost to the economy, environment, human rights, worker safety, public health, democracy, and America's place in the world?

Juhasz investigates the true state of the U.S. oil industry, uncovering its virtually unparalleled global power, its influence over our elected officials, its lack of regulatory oversight, the truth behind $150-a-barrel oil, $4.50-a-gallon gasoline, and the highest profits in corporate history. Exposing an industry that thrives on secrecy, Juhasz shows how Big Oil manages to hide its business dealings from policy makers, legislators, and most of all, consumers. She reveals exactly how Big Oil gets what it wants--through money, influence, and lies.

A "timely, blistering critique... white-hot... Explosive fuel for the raging debate on oil prices." - Kirkus Reviews

.

Now, This is Interesting

I've heard this more than a few times in the right-wing noise machine (Pintek on PCNC, Miller on KDKA and so on).

It's the story that while the Congress refuses to open up ANWR to exploitation drilling, the Communist Chinese are drilling not 60 miles away from the Florida Coast - with the help of Castro's Cuba.

We got verification from the second highest office in the land:

Even Vice President Dick Cheney got into the mix Wednesday, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that ``oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government.

''Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply,'' he added. ``Yet Congress has said . . . no to drilling off Florida.''

The dirty bastards!

Only, it looks like the story isn't true.

Today a Republican Senator from Florida, Mel Martinez had this to say on the floor of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body:

''Reports to the contrary are simply false,'' Martinez said, his remarks delivered just before Cheney spoke. ``They are akin to urban legends. China drilling off the coast of Cuba only 60 miles from the Keys, that is not taking place. . . Any talk of using some fabricated Cuba-China connection as an argument to change U.S. policy has no merit.''

Of course the GOP had a handy retort:

House Minority Leader John Boehner's office defended the GOP drilling claims, pointing to a 2006 New York Times story that noted Cuba had ``negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources.''

''The fact is China can drill off the coast of the United States and Americans can't,'' said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. ``At a time when the nationwide average price for a gallon of gas is over $4, that policy just doesn't make sense.''

Here's the Times article (I think).

But notice something. What did Boehner's spokesman say? "The fact is China can drill off the coast..." And what did Dick say? "...oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast ..."

My friends, there's huge difference between "can" and "is" isn't there? The latter asserts the thing actually happening but the former asserts merely the possibility of it happening. Huge difference.

In any event, we learn from The Politico:

Democrats today pointed to a February 29, 2008 Congressional Research Service that found “[w]hile there has been some concern about China’s potential involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its involvement in Cuba’s oil sector has been focused on onshore oil extraction in Pinar del Rio province through its state-run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec).”

And then there's this from McClatchy:

China's Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government, but it's to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Pinon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling, and nothing offshore.

Western diplomats in Havana tell McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge, there is no Chinese drilling in or around Cuba.

"I've never heard anything about this," said one diplomat from a country in the hemisphere.

And even if there was drilling (and it looks like there ain't) that wouldn't be doing much for the Cubans or the Chinese anyway:

Cuba's state oil company, Cupet, has issued exploration contracts to companies from India, Canada, Spain, Malaysia and Norway, according to diplomats.

But many oil companies from those countries have expressed reservations about how to turn potential crude oil into product. Cuba doesn't have the refinery capacity, and the Cuban embargo prohibits the oil from coming to U.S. refineries, [Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami] said.

So that just about kills that.

Greenspan: It's About The Oil

It's finally been said.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is quoted in the Washington Post:

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

He's also got a few choice words about DC at the time he left office. DC, in his words was:

harboring a dysfunctional government

And for the GOP:

Greenspan accuses the Republicans who presided over the party's majority in the House until last year of being too eager to tolerate excessive federal spending in exchange for political opportunity. The Republicans, he says, deserved to lose control of the Senate and House in last year's elections. "The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan writes. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

He singles out J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was House speaker until January, and Tom DeLay, the Texan who was majority leader until he resigned after being indicted for violating campaign finance laws in his home state.

"House Speaker Hastert and House majority leader Tom DeLay seemed readily inclined to loosen the federal purse strings any time it might help add a few more seats to the Republican majority," he writes.

Then there's this from the NYTimes:

Mr. Greenspan also spelled out his own views about the war in Iraq: he supported the invasion, he says, not because Saddam Hussein might have had weapons of mass destruction, but because Saddam had shown a clear desire to capture the Middle East’s oil fields.

Oil - it was about the oil. And:

“I’m just very disappointed,” he said glumly, as he sat in his living room. “Smaller government, lower spending, lower taxes, less regulation — they had the resources to do it, they had the knowledge to do it, they had the political majorities to do it. And they didn’t.”

In the end, he said, “political control trumped policy, and they achieved neither political control nor policy.”

The war's about oil, Republican governance is "dysfunctional" and the Republicans were too eager to trade principle for power. Political control trumped policy.

And this guy's a REPUBLICAN!