Hurricane Katrina cost Utah motorists up to $101.8 million in higher gasoline prices at the pump late last year, based on estimates from new government data. That comes to about $57 per licensed driver in Utah.Deseret Morning News
Utah took $101 million hit at pump
February 14, 2006
Exxon Mobil Corp. set U.S. records for annual and quarterly profits Monday as it easily topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts. The nation's largest oil company reported net income in the fourth quarter of $10.7 billion, or $1.71 a share, compared to $8.4 billion, or $1.30 a share, a year earlier.CNN Money.com
Exxon Mobil sets profit record
January 30, 2006
The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years. New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.New York Times
U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies
February 13, 2006
Weber County Forum upgrades Exxon Mobil (XOM), and the energy sector in general, to a "Strong Buy" for the year 2006. There are oilmen at the helm in the Whitehouse, after all; and there's a "killing' to be made for savvy investors in the energy sector. Back up the truck, and load up on energy shares. The oil and gas companies will be happy to assist us in continuing to maintain our energy-profligate lifestyles, but you'd better believe we're going to pay through the nose for it.
And what say our gentle readers about this?
9 comments:
If all the "peak oil" stuff is true, we'll all be screwed in about 20 years anyway.
Congress in their chronic state of insanity is planning to give the big oil companies even more of a bonanza.
Over the next 5 years 68 Billion in oil revenues will be allowed to be taken from Federal lands by Big Oil under the umbrella of royalties.
In the oil business this means the oil companies will get a tax deduction of 68 Billion from revenue with an estimated tax savings of 7 BILLION to their coffers with a 7 BILLION cost to taxpayers.
This adds insult to injury to the average citizens paying through the nose for gas at the pump because now the actual cost to us will be 7 BILLION more from lost revenue to the government from taxes because of the royalty write-off by big oil.
Oil companies have always been allowed a depletion write-off under the category of royalties. The theory behind the depletion write-off was to allow oil companies to keep the funds for additional exploration.
So why haven't they been doing their exploration that we have been paying for for years?
Federal lands belong to the citizens so why should we not get the 7 BILLION revenue from the taxes for needed costs of government?
2005 was the biggest year in history for profit to big oil giants. The chairman of Exxon supposedly made 42 million in compensation.
When will Hatch and Bennett along with the other senators and Bishop and Matheson along with the rest of the House members quit voting always for bigger and more lucrative write-offs for big business?
Big business runs this country and we keep casting the votes to allow it to happen.
Dorothy, you and others of your persuasion always seem to buy into this insanity. If only the answers were that simple.
armysarge:
You must be a wanna-be big oil man.
Permit me to, once again, quietly remind the company assembled [and Rudi especially] that both houses of Congress and the Presidency while all this is going on are in Republican hands.
My my my. Imagine that.
Let me also remind the company assembled [and Rudi especially] that hymns of praise for the "free market" were behind Republican pushes, ultimately successful, alas, to greatly diminish government regulation of commercial real estate investments by the nation's Savings and Loan Associations. The result was the catastrophic "Savings and Loans" crisis which cost the taxpayers billions. The same "free market" arguments lay behind the lifting of government regulation of the energy sector, which promptly led to the Enron debacle and the highway robbery of California in the so-called "energy crisis."
Hmmmmm. Is there a lesson to be learned in there somewhere?
Not so Dorothy....I pay the price just like the rest of you. The real problem is that this thing is just a whole lot more complicated than "Big Oil is out to get us all".
Bravo to Curmudgeon's gentleness and the correctness of his observations. (Just watch those split infinitives!)
"Permit me to, once again, quietly remind the company assembled [and Rudi especially] that both houses of Congress and the Presidency while all this is going on are in Republican hands."
Permit me to loudly say that the current Republican Party is infested with Demos who fled their own party (the democRATS), when the Party of Roosevelt finally turned fully left in the 1990's.
We're stuck with a pack of "Scoop Jackson Democrats," i.e. neoCONS, who have zero concern for conservative Republican values.
There's a civil war going on in the Republican Party, whether you know about it or not.
Paleo-Republicans are weeding out the neocon faction (which now controls congress) one-by-one at the grassroots.
Please don't blame this mess on the REAL Republicans.
All we want to do is try to keep government small and frugal, refrain from intervening in anything that's NOT our business, and to continue to fight for the God-given rights that nature gave us.
Anyone can claim to be a Republican. Smart folks judge socialist dopes with elephant lapel-pins by their works!
Next!
Ah, Rudi, 'tis wonderful to behold. Whenever a registered, declared and elected Republican does something sleezy, reprehensible, in violation of the public good, or such like, the Party Faithful immediatly announce that "he's not really a Republican, he's a RHINO [Republican in Name Only]. But you, compadre have taken it one wonderful step further. You have announced that the Republicans now ruling the House, the Senate and the Presidency [and occupying the Mayor's office in Our Fair City] are really... [wait for it]... Democrats!
PS: typing while laughing is really hard.....
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