Exxon/Mobil Profits, Tax Breaks and Subsidies

Here are excerpts from three different sources. Taken altogether they would be laughable if they weren’t such a sad commentary on the way things are.

From the Boston Globe:

HOUSTON –Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $39.5 billion — even as earnings for the last quarter of 2006 declined 4 percent.

The 2006 profit topped the previous record, also by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion set in 2005. The record earnings amounted to roughly $4.5 million an hour for the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, which produces about 3 percent of the world’s oil.

It also equals the approximate gross domestic product — a measure of all goods and services produced within a country in a given year — of countries like Ecuador, Luxembourg and Croatia.

From Greenpeace (those rascally radicals):

In August [2005], Bush signed into law the notorious energy bill - granting $14.5 billion in tax breaks and incentives to the energy industry. Then, on October 7 [2005], the House of Representatives passed a bill that would give federal insurance to oil refiners whose expansion projects are delayed by lawsuits or red tape. 

Surprise, Surprise

Exxon plans to invest ZERO dollars of its obscene profits into renewable energy development. According to Exxon spokesperson Dave Gardner, “We’re an oil and gas company. In times past, when we tried to get into other businesses, we didn’t do it well. We’d rather re-invest in what we know.”

From International Business Times (from November 2006):

BOSTON (AP) - Proposals by congressional Democrats to eliminate oil industry tax breaks and subsidies would set a bad example overseas and discourage new industry investments, Exxon Mobil’s top executive said Thursday.

Rex W. Tillerson said moves suggested by leaders of the incoming Democratic congressional majority would encourage similar steps by governments abroad, where Exxon Mobil Corp. generates the bulk of its profit.

“I think the bigger concern I have is not so much the economic direct effect of the fact that they want to take a tax break off here or there. But it’s the message it sends the rest of the world that you don’t have to provide stable (regulatory) frameworks,” Tillerson told reporters after a speech to the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club.

“And if that happens, none of us are going to be able to take the risk in this business.”

moby on his blog yesterday had this to say about all this:

exxon reported profits of $39.5 billion dollars on record earnings last year.
and, fun fact, our tax dollars subsidize oil production here in the united states and abroad.
exxon also receive billions in corporate welfare and subsidies.
i mean, call me crazy, but shouldn’t a company that is making record profits be exempt from receiving subsidies and tax breaks?
i know, i’m just a crazy lefty, but that seems like it would make sense, no?
what if, and i know this might sound nuts, our government subsidized sustainable domestic energy production and stopped subsidizing companies who increase our reliance
upon foreign oil?
ok, i’ll stop with the crazy talk now.

I couldn’t agree more.