Filibuster to protect Big Oil Welfare fueled by oil money
Brad Johnson has this breaking story.
Tonight, Republicans filibustered the majority’s attempt to repeal $21 billion in subsidies for the big five oil companies “” the same companies that made over $30 billion in profits in just the first three months of 2011.
While three out of four Americans believe Exxon Mobil and the other oil majors should pay their fair share, instead of receiving taxpayer welfare, the oil-friendly Senate split 52 to 48 to end the subsidies. Though the majority of the Senate voted to repeal these oil tax breaks, the procedural motion required a 60 vote threshold. An analysis of campaign contribution records shows the gusher of dirty cash that fueled the filibuster:
A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis finds that the 48 senators who sided with Big Oil received over $21 million in career oil contributions, while 52 senators who sided with the American people received only $5.4 million in contributions. Each senator who voted for Big Oil received on average more than four times as much oil cash as those who voted to end the subsidies.
While eight Republican senators voted for a bill that included a repeal of tax breaks for big oil in 2007, only Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine voted with the Democrats in supporting ending taxpayer handouts to big oil tonight. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) joined the Republicans to protect the oil companies’ corporate welfare.
– Brad Johnson, in a Think Progress repost.
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Elephantine Oil Companies rule. Starve them to death. Drive fewer miles. Go electric when you can.
Can I trade in my head vise for a barf bag…?
(on a closely related subject) …
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Bravo to the Sulzbergers, the nation’s paper of record The New York Times, Bill Keller, the folks who plan the front page, and Daniel J. Wakin for the front-page-center article yesterday (Tuesday, May 17) about those misleading “foreign orchestras with exotic or impressive-sounding names” that are “not always what they seem”.
And watch out, American public! Don’t get fooled again!
Alas, it’s great to know that The New York Times is on the beat, making sure that nobody nowhere can get away with feeding us half-truths, misleading us, or lulling us into dangerous situations.
Investigative journalism is back in full force! The New York Times is telling it like it is. And they’re using the front page to do it. I always enjoy seeing courage in the media. “Public good”, here we come!
Now if only The New York Times could use the front page to shine light on the half-truths, less-than-half-truths, downright falsehoods, confusions, dodges, deceitful tactics, and harmful messages that ExxonMobil and much of the rest of the oil industry have been foisting on the public in recent years regarding climate and energy issues, much of which The New York Times itself has hosted in the form of front-page ads, full-page ads, and two-page-spreads. Now that The Times has seen fit to warn us about those deceitful foreign orchestras on the loose, will it begin to shine light on ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, and the gang?
(I’m putting this in the comment string, but the point is a big one, and valid. Perhaps Joe and CP will run it, or something like it, as a guest post?)
Watch out for those foreign orchestras, now! And keep your children inside and tucked in at night!
Jeff
I have to commend my two Republican senators for voting their consciences (not to mention their brains). Bravo Senators Collins and Snowe! Though I’m still waiting for both of you to become Indepenents the way Jim Jeffords of Vermont did a few years ago when he realized that the Republican Party of his ancestors doesn’t exist any more.
Have you noticed that the minuscule coverage of filibuster reform in the media has now completely vanished? The filibuster must go the filibuster must go! Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam!
I disgusts me how the republican, “oil Protected” industry continues to receive record profits while receiving continued tax breaks. I can’t wait to put the hurt on them with all electric or fuel cell technology. They are the greedy, part of society that needs to be cut off and see if they can survive on the trickle down theory. Come on democrats stand up and pull together and fight for what you believe in! quit being so weak!!!
max: the coverage has vanished because the prospects for reform have vanished. Several months ago.
I am aware of that
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam!
It was once said, “My country, right or wrong.” (Not that I’d agree.)
Now, with our oil companies masters, it’s, “Our oil companies, right or wrong.”
We are in big trouble. Corporations and those running them view the short term as everything. The short term misses much, especially AGW.
I predict that 2011/12 food prices will be going through the roof because we’re not connecting the longer term dots linking AGW, weather and crops.
I’m not being funny, you can’t eat money, Rex and friends.
Sad regards,
Roger
The bill would surely have failed in the House anyway, so it was largely symbolic. Now we now where everybody stands on the issue, if we didn’t before.
Why cannot Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich and Ben Nelson be censured for their cowardice?
What happened there?
When I submitted that #9 comment on page reload the details of ‘another’ appeared in the Name-Mail-Website fields instead of mine. A further page reload revealed these fields empty – not as usual.
During composing that comment I temporarily lost control of the cursor.
Firefox v4.0.1
Lionel A
Several commenters have had the same experience. This time the luck of the draw for me was CountryBumpkin with his email.
Joan Savage
So there are some honest politicians: the sort that once bought, stay bought.
Max, thanks for the history lesson.
“Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed.” Cato said it first and often. The Cato Institute has a different target.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder
@Lionel A: I had the same problem last evening.
Nuclear option to get rid of filibuster.
Republican Senators don’t vote, they goosestep. Even Collins and Snowe have cast plenty of crappy votes lately, but in this case another oil handout was just too much of an eyebrow raiser for their constituents.
We have witnessed the party of men like Everett Dirksen and Dwight Eisenhower become a craven collection of big money fascists. There is nothing to be gained by bargaining or even talking to them. Instead, they must be called out in public and defeated at every opportunity.
Until the Senate rules are changed to eliminate the filibuster any substantive action on public policy issues that actually benefit the majority of Americans is simply a non-starter. A vote by a senator to maintain this rule is a vote to maintain the status quo including the ongoing rush to embrace our climate destiny, catastrophe.
My understanding is that Mary Landrieu is up for best actress nomination for her role in “Giving it up for Big Oil”
Taxpayer subsidies for oil, oil for war, war for oil, and climate destabilization exacerbating oil-fueled militarism and economic decline. The US Federal Government seems well greased for impoverishment. Unfortunately, our corrupted human interactions will soon be overwhelmed by laws of nature, not of man. Climate response is now observed as exponential, not linear “as previously thought.”
So we argue over $2 billion perverse subsidy per year while these addiction advocates of climate change just collected $1 trillion profit during the recent decade. (World public fossil subsidies run into the hundreds of billions per year.) Not to mention the $12 trillion bankster bailout and the $14 trillion national debt, including oil for war. We are prisoners on the USS Titanic of lost democracy. We are indeed very lost if we can not make such a simple and vital correction to our perverse economics.
Similarities to Easter Island, etc. How’s Mississippi? Washington DC may flood during our lifetimes, then we won’t have to worry about all the massive perverse corporate subsidies any more.
Do you have to be a Tea Party member for the Senate to listen? While three out of four average Americans believe that big oil should pay their share instead of taxpapers paying; the senate isn’t listening to the people. I love this phrase which was brought into the news…. “what would Jesus do?”