Big Oil, Playing the Victim

[RyanPsych]

WASHINGTON - As public anger over high fuel prices and record oil company profits erupted across the nation, the major oil giants told lawmakers here that it's all beyond their control.

"Don't punish our industry for doing its job well," said James Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips, at a Capitol Hill hearing as he fought to halt a Democratic effort to cut oil industry tax breaks that amount to about $2 billion a year, supposedly to encourage oil exploration and drilling.

The Senate Finance Committee called upon the heads of the five largest oil companies to testify about proposals by President Obama and Senate Democrats that would repeal their tax breaks. The top executives of Exxon Mobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Chevron, knowing that 90 percent of Americans favor ending what amounts to welfare for corporations, visibly squirmed as they tried to answer tough questions.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., played a video of a 2005 hearing in which oil company executives said they did not need incentives to encourage oil exploration when oil was $55 a barrel. "If your company didn't need incentives to drill for oil at $55 a barrel, how in the world can you possibly need incentives when oil is at $100 a barrel?" Wyden asked.

Mulva's response was that oil companies should receive tax breaks available to other industries.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the committee, told the CEOs, "Given profits of $35 billion in just the first quarter alone, it's hard to find evidence that repealing these subsidies would cut domestic production or cause layoffs."

One CEO all but admitted that the subsidies, paid for by American taxpayers, amount to U.S. workers funding global oil company profiteering.

"Stated simply, oil is a global commodity," Shell Oil Co. President Marvin Odum said. "With worldwide economic recovery under way, demand is on the rise, sending prices upward."

He implied that soaring prices are simply driven by the marketplace. But others believe otherwise.

continue reading at: http://www.peoplesworld.org/oil-ceos-to-congress-don-t-blame-us/

[Yon_Yonson]

1. Oil companies are greedy and on the public dole

I quote "Don't punish our industry for doing its job well,"! The way I see it is that doing a job well is purely depended on how much money you can make and how well you can gouged the consumer. It’s free enterprise of course and the cost in blood, sweat, tears and ruined economies is strictly a side price.

Lets see how well these oil bloodsuckers work without the SOCIALISTIST help of amerika’s government. Hit em where it hurts ... in their pocketbooks!

[KansDem]

2. "Don't punish our industry for doing its job well"

It's the old "Why punish success" canard that is trumpeted whenever the topic of raising taxes on the wealthy arises.

Socialize the Risk
Privatize the Profits