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Congressional Republicans Deliver Early Christmas Gift to Big Oil, Exxon and Koch Brothers

Michael Brune
Dec. 18, 2015 01:31PM EST Insights + Opinion

Today the U.S. Congress approved a trillion dollar omnibus spending bill alongside a major tax overhaul.

The centerpiece of this bill, lifting the crude-oil export ban, is an outrage. At the same time, Democrats successfully secured a number of important victories for clean energy, public lands and our climate during hard fought negotiations.

This early Christmas gift to Big Oil, ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers from Congressional Republicans will send American jobs overseas, rip up more iconic American landscapes to pump oil that nobody needs, and increase the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis.

Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans have yet to recognize that the entire world, including even the biggest oil producing states like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Russia just agreed to set an expiration date on fossil fuels and power the world with clean energy.

Democrats were successful in ensuring that some aspects of this budget move America closer to our clean energy future. Those include long term extensions of wind and solar energy tax credits, as well as the near total absence of destructive riders designed to de-fund essential clean air and clean water programs. Furthermore, Congressional Republicans were ultimately unable to block important international climate funding which their most fringe members threatened to withhold throughout the global negotiations in Paris.

Other important measures, including an extension of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), as well as a small but insufficient start toward funding essential policies that help the communities and workers historically reliant on coal, were also included.

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As a growing number of states move to pass laws that would criminalize pipeline protests and hit demonstrators with years in prison, an audio recording obtained by The Intercept showed a representative of a powerful oil and gas lobbying group bragging about the industry's success in crafting anti-protest legislation behind closed doors.


Speaking during a conference in Washington, DC in June, Derrick Morgan, senior vice president for federal and regulatory affairs at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), touted "model legislation" that states across the nation have passed in recent months.

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"The AFPM lobbyist also boasted that the template legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support," according to Fang. "In Louisiana, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the version of the bill there, which is being challenged by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Even in Illinois, Morgan noted, 'We almost got that across the finish line in a very Democratic-dominated legislature.' The bill did not pass as it got pushed aside over time constraints at the end of the legislative session."

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