Edward Markey is a big ol' dumbass

[cma...@hotmail.com]

Caught this story in the wide net I have set up on google news for
work to catch stories about oil production on the Outer Continental
Shelf. Democrats get all indignant with oil company executives for
making record profits last year while gas prices soar when they should
be looking at themselves in the mirror in shame instead. I haven't
heard of the executives of Archers Daniel Midland and Con Agra being
called cheaters and profiteers as Mr. Markey and his colleagues line
their pockets with money from the farm lobby and force feed this bio-
fuel farce on the American people all while Big Agriculture rapes and
rakes in record profits as well. There hasn't been one energy expert
who can claim that bio fuels are a reliable and efficient source to
meet the energy demands of this country, yet Markey chastises the
companies that supply the Federal Government with its second largest
source of income (royalty payments for oil and gas extraction) for not
investing in bio fuels. So not only does he believe the oil companies
should be making less for their product than what it's worth, he
thinks they should make unwise investments with their lower profits.
Perhaps Mr. Markey and his ilk should take a lesson in simple supply
and demand and realize the reason Americans are paying record prices
for gasoline is because world-wide demand is at an all time high, the
dollar is for shit right now and the Democrats have over and over and
over again made it more difficult for America to supply itself with
oil and natural gas. Check the recent vote in the Senate dealing with
oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia that was split
almost exactly down party lines.... Democrats voting against
exploration, Republicans voting for and the Virginia State Legislature
being for it all the way. So, we don't explore for more oil and gas,
haven't increased refining capacity, threaten, through Nancy Pelosi's
Energy Bill, to raise taxes and tariff's on oil companies, raise
royalty payments to an all time high and Markey still has the ignorant
audacity to say it's the oil companies' fault. Laughable. It's time to
stop relying on five states in this country to supply the rest of the
nation its energy and its time to stop believing in this bio-fuel myth
and be honest. If Mr. Markey and others insist America remain
dependent upon unreliable sources for its energy demands by limiting
this country's ability to sustain itself, then they need to fess up to
the people they represent that they are the reason gas is $3.29 a
gallon.

Just some pot stirring.....

love,
mac

April 1, 2008, 11:10PM
GASOLINE PRICES
Profits realistic, oil execs insist
But lawmakers offer own ideas on industry behavior

By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Oil company executives expressed sympathy for consumers
hurt by high energy costs Tuesday but defended their companies' record
profits.

With gasoline prices at an all-time high and angry truck drivers
parking their rigs Tuesday in protest of even-higher diesel prices,
executives from the nation's five largest oil companies appeared
before a House panel, where they were chastised by Democrats for their
corporate profits and failure to invest more in renewable energy
sources.

"On April Fools' Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on
American families by Big Oil, who are using every trick in the book to
keep billions in federal tax subsidies, even as they rake in record
profits," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a longtime oil industry
critic and chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy
Independence and Global Warming.

The energy executives tried to defuse some of the outrage over their
profits -- which Markey tallied at $123 billion in 2007 -- at a time
when many Americans are struggling to find the cash to fill up their
cars.

"All Americans feel the pain of $100 oil, and it's not just at the
pump," said Chevron Vice Chairman Peter Robertson. "Everything is more
expensive. People are concerned about rising costs. And rightly so."

But J. Stephen Simon, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s senior vice president, and
Robert A. Malone, president of BP America, pointed to figures they
said suggest the oil and gas industry's profits last year were not out
of line with companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Oil and gas companies, the executives said, earned an average of 8.3
cents per dollar of sales, compared with 7.8 cents per dollar for the
Dow companies -- which include Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

Simon said that Exxon Mobil's effective tax rate in 2007 was 44
percent, compared with 30 percent on average for 80 U.S. companies
surveyed by Tax Notes, a print and online news service covering tax
issues.

Simon said that over the last five years, Exxon Mobil's U.S. tax bill
has exceeded the company's U.S. earnings by $19 billion.

Intense exchanges
House Democrats had telegraphed the kind of reception the executives
could anticipate with the hearing's title -- "Drilling for Answers: Oil
Company Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives."

And the hearing lived up to expectations in what proved to be an often-
testy exchange.

Markey quickly went after Exxon Mobil, asking why a company that
earned more than $40 billion last year -- the most ever earned by a
U.S. company -- has plans to invest only $100 million over 10 years in
renewables and alternative energy programs.

Simon said company officials examined a range of alternative energy
sources a number of years ago and were unsatisfied with their
potential.

Instead, Simon said, company officials want to focus on leapfrogging
current technologies and find a breakthrough for the world's energy
concerns.

"The current technology does not have any appreciable impact on this
challenge," Simon said.

Democrats pointed to the commitments BP and Shell have been making in
alternative energy sources.

Markey wants them to do more, though, and invest at least 10 percent
of their profits in renewables and alternative energy sources.

But early Tuesday, at Washington's Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive officer of
Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell, warned against sinking too much
cash on alternatives such as biofuels if they cannot be competitive in
the marketplace.

"There is no point to spend billions of dollars on a technology that
is too expensive for consumers," van der Veer said.

Retirement package
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., asked Simon how to explain former Exxon
Mobil Chairman Lee Raymond's $400 million 2005 retirement package to
consumers struggling with high energy bills.

"I would have hoped that would be behind us now," Simon said.

"That is in the past." Simon noted, however, that Raymond's package
was decided by outside directors and not inconsistent with what other
executives of comparable stature received.

The ranking Republican on the panel, Rep. James Sensenbrenner of
Wisconsin, said that while "everyone knows the economic impact that
gasoline can have on goods in the market ... these companies create a
lot of good jobs, and their expanded investment in market-driven
research and technology only serves to create more jobs."

The oil company executives are keen to fend off a bid to sock them
with $18 billion in taxes to provide incentives for renewable and
clean energy programs.

The Democratic-led House approved such a bill in February, but the
measure has stalled in the Senate, and the White House has threatened
a veto if it passes Congress.

Asked what policymakers could do to help bring down energy costs, the
oil executives reiterated their long-standing call for access to areas
now out of bounds to oil and gas exploration -- particularly the Outer
Continental Shelf off the East and West coasts.

"Altogether, these areas are estimated to hold 80 billion barrels of
recoverable oil and natural gas equivalent -- enough to double current
U.S. reserves," said John Lowe, executive vice president for
exploration and production at Houston-based ConocoPhillips.

But Markey and other Democrats were unsympathetic to the call for
greater access to new areas, arguing the oil companies have not been
drilling in much of the acreage they already have leased from the
federal government.

The House hearing came just one day after prices at the gas pump hit a
record of $3.29 a gallon for regular, according to AAA's Daily Fuel
Gauge Report. The price was down a fraction of a penny Tuesday.

Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister noted that while consumers may
be struggling to cope with higher fuel bills, prices at the pump have
risen far more slowly than crude oil prices.

Crude still at $100
The price of oil, which historically has accounted for around half the
price of gasoline, now accounts for 70 percent, according to the
American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery closed at $100.90 a barrel Tuesday
on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

While Tuesday's session seemed to produce little meeting of the minds,
Markey vowed it would be but the first of a series of the hearings the
House will hold this year on the oil and gas industry.

The oil executives, Markey said, will be the winners of any contest
for "most visits to Washington in 2008."

[l...@jeansonne.com]

I am so sick of hearing the phrase "record profits." as long as oil
consumption continues to increase, oil companies will have record
profits every year. This is true of any industry that's doing better
than inflation. Oil companies' profit MARGINS have not increased.

I agree that biofuels are BS, the only reason they're taken seriously
is because Iowa has an early caucus.

--
Louis Jeansonne