Meanwhile, the high gas prices are adding to the profits of the big companies. Says the watchdog group Public Citizen:
“Since George Bush became president in 2001, the top five oil companies [selling gas] in the United States have recorded profits of $254 billion: ExxonMobil: $89 billion, Shell: $60.7 billion, BP: $53 billion, ChevronTexaco: $31 billion, ConocoPhillips: $20 billion.”
The group adds:
“As Americans shell out more dollars at the pump, the profit margin by U.S. oil refiners has shot up 79% from 1999 (the year Exxon and Mobil merged) to 2004.”
Bush refuses to increase the energy efficiency standards for motor vehicles, which use 70 percent of total oil production, and he recently signed the energy bill that hands out billions in new subsidies to the industry. Even he seems to recognize what a shuck this is: In April, with prices moving ever higher and the Congress debating the energy bill, Bush said, “With $55 oil, we don’t need incentives to oil and gas companies.”
But this summer, Congress, with the president’s enthusiastic support, adopted a series of new subsidies for the oil and gas industry. “Officially, the energy bill’s giveaways are supposed to cost $14.6 billion over the next 10 years, offset in part by $3.1 billion in higher gasoline taxes on consumers,” says Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. “But that doesn’t include the bill’s $70 billion in authorized but unfunded subsidies, for which cash will have to be appropriated later.”