Democrats grill top oil execs, but Sen. Menendez doesn't get his apology

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By Meteor Blades
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/12/975463/-Democrats-grill-top-oil-execs,-but-Sen-Menendez-doesnt-get-his-apology

If there was a defining moment at Thursday's wide-ranging Senate Finance Committee hearings with executives from the world's five largest private oil companies, it came when Sen. Ron Wyden or Oregon played the above video from 2005. In it oil company executives agreed that they had no need for continuing tax subsidies with oil going for $55 a barrel, more than four times what it had been selling for just a few years previously. Currently oil is selling at nearly $100 a barrel and the five big oil companies are raking in profits that are likely to hit a record this year. At the same time, the oil industry is saving $4.4 billion on its annual tax bill thanks to subsidies.

Wyden said: "You all said you didn't need them in 2005. You seem to be telling a different story today."

That ought to have wrapped it up right then and there. But, with the dutiful assistance of Sen. Orrin Hatch, the execs defended themselves and their subsidies against Democratic criticism. And they rejected a Democratic proposal that would repeal a number of those tax breaks.

If the proposal were to pass, it would bring in about $2 billion a year into the Treasury at a time when both political parties are focused on reducing the government deficit. John Watson, chairman and CEO of Chevron, said there shouldn't be selective taxation and the oil giants should get the same breaks as other industries get. Taking away subsidies, he and the other top execs from BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell said, would hurt their competitiveness, cost jobs, reduce their incentive to explore for more oil and not reduce the cost of gasoline. Neither he nor they called the breaks "subsidies."

As he had promised Wednesday, Sen. Robert Menendez, one of the sponsors of the tax break repeal, asked James J. Mulva, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, to apologize for a press release calling a repeal of the tax break "Un-American." But Mulva refused, saying he had meant no offense."Our industry and company are already taxed heavily compared to other industries in the United States," he said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer then asked any of the executives who believed the "Un-American" accusation to raise his hand. None did. They do, after all, pay for good coaching from their press relations squads.

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video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1zJ-LAaOeI&feature=player_embedded

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