Big Oil to Congress: 'Don't F#@k With Us'

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/big-oil-to-congress-dont-f-k-with-us-20110513

Big Oil execs appeared on Capitol Hill yesterday and told members of the Senate Finance Committee, in so many words, "Don't fuck with us."

That’s nothing new, of course. But yesterday’s hearing was a particularly revealing example of how cocky Big Oil is feeling right now, with gas prices high, summer driving season on the way, and a still-sluggish economy that allows Big Oil to throw its weight around in Washington like sumo wrestlers in a room full of ballerinas.

The subject of yesterday’s hearing was a Democratic proposal to cut $21 billion in oil industry subsidies over the next decade and use it to pay down the deficit (the original plan had been to use the money to fund clean-energy research, but that was DOA with fossil-fuel friendly politicans of both parties). The revised proposal has a certain populist appeal: if Republicans want to make deficit reduction the number one political priority in America, why not start by cutting pay-outs to one of the biggest, oldest, and richest industries in the world? It’s not like Big Oil needs the cash. The Big Five oil companies -- Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips – made $34 billion in profits in the first three months of 2011, up more than 40 percent from a year ago. If they were smart, Big Oil could have supported the proposal as a patriotic gesture, a sign that, in America, during hard times, we all have to pull together and give up a little something.

But of course that is not how it played out. Instead, we witnessed a parade of greed and political body-checking that was remarkable even by Congressional standards.

More at the link --