
Center for American Progress
By Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman
Time magazine reported in December that “2012 will go down as most expensive year ever for gas.” The Energy Information Administration determined that gasoline averaged $3.63 per gallon—a dime per gallon more than the previous record set in 2011. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that high gasoline prices were due to high crude oil prices—“with crude oil accounting for 66 percent of the retail cost of gasoline.”
Not surprisingly, higher gasoline prices took a bigger bite out of families’ budgets in 2012. According to data recently released by the EIA:
Gasoline expenditures in 2012 for the average U.S. household reached $2,912, or just under 4 percent of income before taxes. … this was the highest estimated percentage of household income spent on gasoline in the last decade, with the exception of 2008, when the average household spent a similar amount. Although overall gasoline consumption has decreased in recent years, a rise in average gasoline prices has led to higher overall household gasoline expenditures.
Where does all of this money go? Into the pockets of Big Oil, of course. While higher gasoline prices caused families pain at the pump, they were a boon to the world’s five largest oil companies. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell made a combined $118 billion in profits in 2012, or an average of almost $500 in profit for every one of the nearly 250 million passenger vehicles on the road in the U.S. This huge 2012 haul follows the big five oil companies’ record profit of $137 billion in 2011. Download full data on Big Oil’s profits and activities in 2012.
Below we dig a little deeper into the big five’s latest earnings—including how they spent them—and explain why companies this profitable should not be receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks, especially when conservatives plan severe cuts in vital middle-class programs, including Medicare, education and cancer research.
Sitting on drilling leases
Despite their huge 2012 profits and their $70 billion in capital reserves, the big five oil companies actually produced less oil in 2012 compared to 2011. These five companies each have several hundred idle offshore leases that could produce oil if they were developed, according to an analysis for Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA).* This report found that “ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, hold full or partial shares in more than 1,500 of these idle federal drilling leases spanning almost 8 million acres … according to previously undisclosed data obtained from the U.S. Department of Interior.”
Boosting the bottom line
While not investing in producing oil from their idle leases, four of the companies—all but BP—spent $42 billion, or one-third of their profits, repurchasing their stock. This practice enriches shareholders but it doesn’t add to oil supplies or to investments in alternative fuels or other new technologies.
The big five oil companies invested nearly $50 million of their abundant bounty to lobby Congress in 2012. They spent nearly $8 million on federal campaign contributions, with Republican candidates receiving $4 for every $1 donated to Democrats. A major goal of these political efforts was to retain their special tax breaks, which annually are worth $2.4 billion, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Last March Big Oil successfully lobbied against a Senate bill to eliminate the special tax breaks. The bill was defeated by a vote of 51-47, with 60 votes needed for passage.
These special tax provisions are part of what makes the oil and gas industry the most heavily subsidized energy source in the world over the past 100 years, according to “What Would Jefferson Do?,” a study by the venture capitalist firm DBL Investors. It determined that the oil industry received a total of $446 billion in government subsidies from 1918 through 2009. Meanwhile, the renewable energy industry received $5.5 billion over the past 15 years. U.S. taxpayers invested $80 in oil for every $1 invested in clean, renewable energy.
Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, repeatedly claims that “The oil and gas industry gets no subsidies, zero, nothing,” but this ignores reality. Economists recognize that there is no meaningful difference between tax expenditures and programs that spend money directly. President Ronald Reagan’s chief economic advisor, economist Martin Feldstein, noted that “These tax rules—because they result in the loss of revenue that would otherwise be collected by the government—are equivalent to direct government expenditures. If Congress is serious about cutting government spending, it has to go after many of them.”
Moreover, contrary to claims by Big Oil lobbyists, the big three publicly owned U.S. oil companies—ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips—paid relatively low federal effective tax rates in 2011. Reuters reports that their tax payments were “a far cry from the 35 percent top corporate tax rate.” Their effective federal tax rates in 2011 were: ExxonMobil, 13 percent; Chevron, 19 percent; and ConocoPhillips, 18 percent.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) just-released energy plan argues that these special oil tax breaks should be retained because they help “companies’ ability to make the capital expenditures needed to bring re‐sources to market.” This claim ignores that the big five oil companies have $70 billion in cash reserves—ample capital to bring oil to the market.
Maintaining the existing special tax breaks for the big five oil companies makes little sense. In essence, the policy allows Big Oil to force Americans to pay them twice: first at the pump for high gasoline prices, and again by robbing the U.S. Treasury of $2.4 billion annually—money that is replaced with tax revenue from the middle class. After posting enormous profits in 2012, elimination of these unnecessary special tax breaks for the largest oil companies is long overdue.
Visit EcoWatch’s ENERGY page for more related news on this topic.
——–
Click here to tell Congress to Expedite Renewable Energy.
——–
Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress. Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant at the Center.
* According to the report, “The definition of idle, or inactive, leases used in this report is the same definition used by the Department of Interior. According to the department, idle leases are those leased areas that are not producing and have no approved exploration or development plan. Certain activities such as geophysical and geotechnical analysis, including seismic and other types of surveys, may be going on in some of these areas.”
New fossils uncovered in Argentina may belong to one of the largest animals to have walked on Earth.
- Groundbreaking Fossil Shows Prehistoric 15-Foot Reptile Tried to ... ›
- Skull of Smallest Known Dinosaur Found in 99-Million-Year Old Amber ›
- Giant 'Toothed' Birds Flew Over Antarctica 40 Million Years Ago ... ›
- World's Second-Largest Egg Found in Antarctica Probably Hatched ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
A federal court on Tuesday struck down the Trump administration's rollback of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
- Pruitt Guts the Clean Power Plan: How Weak Will the New EPA ... ›
- It's Official: Trump Administration to Repeal Clean Power Plan ... ›
- 'Deadly' Clean Power Plan Replacement ›
Trending
By Jonathan Runstadler and Kaitlin Sawatzki
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have found coronavirus infections in pet cats and dogs and in multiple zoo animals, including big cats and gorillas. These infections have even happened when staff were using personal protective equipment.
Gorillas have been affected by human viruses in the past and are susceptible to the coronavirus. Thomas Fuhrmann via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
- Gorillas in San Diego Test Positive for Coronavirus - EcoWatch ›
- Wildlife Rehabilitators Are Overwhelmed During the Pandemic. In ... ›
- Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World's ... ›
- Utah Mink Becomes First Wild Animal to Test Positive for Coronavirus ›
By Peter Giger
The speed and scale of the response to COVID-19 by governments, businesses and individuals seems to provide hope that we can react to the climate change crisis in a similarly decisive manner - but history tells us that humans do not react to slow-moving and distant threats.
A Game of Jenga
<p>Think of it as a game of Jenga and the planet's climate system as the tower. For generations, we have been slowly removing blocks. But at some point, we will remove a pivotal block, such as the collapse of one of the major global ocean circulation systems, for example the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), that will cause all or part of the global climate system to fall into a planetary emergency.</p><p>But worse still, it could cause runaway damage: Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate.</p><p>One of the most concerning tipping points is mass methane release. Methane can be found in deep freeze storage within permafrost and at the bottom of the deepest oceans in the form of methane hydrates. But rising sea and air temperatures are beginning to thaw these stores of methane.</p><p>This would release a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. This would drastically increase temperatures and rush us towards the breach of other tipping points.</p><p>This could include the acceleration of ice thaw on all three of the globe's large, land-based ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica. The potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is seen as a key tipping point, as its loss could eventually <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5929/901" target="_blank">raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters</a> with important regional variations.</p><p>More than that, we would be on the irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters, roughly at the rate of two meters per century, or maybe faster. Just look at the raised beaches around the world, at the last high stand of global sea level, at the end of the Pleistocene period around 120,0000 years ago, to see the evidence of such a warm world, which was just 2°C warmer than the present day.</p>Cutting Off Circulation
<p>As well as devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world, melting polar ice could set off another tipping point: a disablement to the AMOC.</p><p>This circulation system drives a northward flow of warm, salty water on the upper layers of the ocean from the tropics to the northeast Atlantic region, and a southward flow of cold water deep in the ocean.</p><p>The ocean conveyor belt has a major effect on the climate, seasonal cycles and temperature in western and northern Europe. It means the region is warmer than other areas of similar latitude.</p><p>But melting ice from the Greenland ice sheet could threaten the AMOC system. It would dilute the salty sea water in the north Atlantic, making the water lighter and less able or unable to sink. This would slow the engine that drives this ocean circulation.</p><p><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantic-conveyor-belt-has-slowed-15-per-cent-since-mid-twentieth-century" target="_blank">Recent research</a> suggests the AMOC has already weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. If this continues, it could have a major impact on the climate of the northern hemisphere, but particularly Europe. It may even lead to the <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/39731?show=full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cessation of arable farming</a> in the UK, for instance.</p><p>It may also reduce rainfall over the Amazon basin, impact the monsoon systems in Asia and, by bringing warm waters into the Southern Ocean, further destabilize ice in Antarctica and accelerate global sea level rise.</p>The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has a major effect on the climate. Praetorius (2018)
Is it Time to Declare a Climate Emergency?
<p>At what stage, and at what rise in global temperatures, will these tipping points be reached? No one is entirely sure. It may take centuries, millennia or it could be imminent.</p><p>But as COVID-19 taught us, we need to prepare for the expected. We were aware of the risk of a pandemic. We also knew that we were not sufficiently prepared. But we didn't act in a meaningful manner. Thankfully, we have been able to fast-track the production of vaccines to combat COVID-19. But there is no vaccine for climate change once we have passed these tipping points.</p><p><a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021" target="_blank">We need to act now on our climate</a>. Act like these tipping points are imminent. And stop thinking of climate change as a slow-moving, long-term threat that enables us to kick the problem down the road and let future generations deal with it. We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and fulfill our commitments to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris Agreement</a>, and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.</p><p>We need to plan now to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need to plan for the impacts, such as the ability to feed everyone on the planet, develop plans to manage flood risk, as well as manage the social and geopolitical impacts of human migrations that will be a consequence of fight or flight decisions.</p><p>Breaching these tipping points would be cataclysmic and potentially far more devastating than COVID-19. Some may not enjoy hearing these messages, or consider them to be in the realm of science fiction. But if it injects a sense of urgency to make us respond to climate change like we have done to the pandemic, then we must talk more about what has happened before and will happen again.</p><p>Otherwise we will continue playing Jenga with our planet. And ultimately, there will only be one loser – us.</p>By John R. Platt
The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and impeachment that capped off Donald Trump's four years in office, but for every regressive action that came before.
- Biden Announces $2 Trillion Climate and Green Recovery Plan ... ›
- How Biden and Kerry Can Rebuild America's Climate Leadership ... ›
- Biden's EPA Pick Michael Regan Urged to Address Environmental ... ›
- How Joe Biden's Climate Plan Compares to the Green New Deal ... ›