In what will likely prove as meaningless a vote as the 37th repeal vote of Obamacare, on Wednesday night 241 members of the House of Representatives voted to approve the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. H.R. 3 would give Congress the power to approve the pipeline and allow TransCanada to build the northern leg without a cross-border permit.

These legislators support the oil industry’s push for the pipeline, even though it would create far fewer jobs than its supporters claim, would do nothing to make the country more energy independent, and would facilitate a dramatic increase in the production of high carbon polluting tar sands oil.

The 241 members who voted for the bill have taken a collective $39,150,812 in career contributions from the oil and gas industry, compared to $5,094,217 for those who voted no. Even more starkly, in the last election cycle, that split widens to $11,529,335 versus $742,125.

Only 19 Democrats voted for the bill, less than a third of the number (69) who supported a similar bill in April 2012. Even some supporters of the pipeline couldn’t vote for tonight’s bill, such as Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV):

“Last Congress, I voted for every piece of pro-Keystone pipeline legislation that was brought before this body… Something’s happened along the way between then and now. And that something is called a hijacking of this bill by the right wing.”

This is the eighth time Republicans pushed a bill promoting Keystone, and the fifth time it voted to speed up the approval process. A White House statement made clear that President Obama would veto the bill because it “conflicts with long-standing Executive branch procedures.”

While some conservatives may claim the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs, the most recent State Department draft environmental impact statement found that the pipeline would directly create only “3,900″ temporary construction jobs. After construction is complete, the operation of the pipeline would only support 35 permanent and 15 temporary jobs, with “negligible socioeconomic impacts.” Moreover, only 10 percent of the total workforce would be hired locally. For perspective, the U.S. had 3.4 million green energy jobs in 2011 and it was the fastest-growing industry in the country.

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Across-the-board cuts to government programs that went into effect in March, known as sequestration, are impacting Americans’ daily lives in many ways.

For example, up to 70,000 children will be cut from Head Start education programs, the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be slashed by $1 billion, and approximately 3,000 jobs at national parks will likely be affected.

Despite the breadth of major impacts, the oil and gas industry had the gall last week to complain that the Bureau of Land Management, the agency which oversees leasing on public lands, delayed two small lease sales in California until October “due to budget constraints resulting from the sequester.”

The Institute for Energy Research, a non-profit backed by the Koch brothers, wrote in a press statement that the Obama administration is planning to “maximize the sequester’s harm to the U.S. economy.”  And the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobbying group, said the decision would kill jobs and stifle economic growth.

What is important to note is that the two delayed lease sales would have auctioned off approximately 3,300 acres of public lands.  But what the industry declined to say was that over the last month, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 132,941 acres of public lands in other states.  Two other lease sales in California between now and September will also be canceled or delayed.

This belligerence is just another example of how the oil and gas industry has it all but wants even more, or, as the New York Times put it last year, “the score card shows the industry is winning.”  Oil and gas companies reap many other benefits when it comes to public lands and waters.  For example, they get a lower royalty rate than in many states and are not drilling more than 7,000 permits that they already own onshore.

The industry also has extraordinary access to the White House, seen for example in the fact that its representatives met more than 20 times in 2012 with staff behind closed doors in advance of new rules about hydraulic fracturing on public lands.  Not to mention that the top five oil companies made a combined $30 billion in profits in just the first quarter of 2013.

A customer pumps gas in California. While many middle-class programs are facing cuts, the big five oil companies continue to enjoy huge profits and tax breaks. (Credit: AP)

Despite the severe budget cuts facing many middle-class programs, the five biggest oil companies continue to rake in tens of billions of dollars in profits, while still receiving unnecessary and wasteful tax breaks.

Middle-class families have gotten some relief at the pump this spring due to declining gasoline prices. AAA reported that U.S. drivers paid an average of $3.55 per gallon of gasoline in April, the least expensive average for this month since 2010. Gasoline prices are now almost 35 cents lower than they were one year ago, when gasoline cost an average of $3.89 per gallon.

Despite lower prices at the pump, the biggest publicly traded oil companies in the world have raked in billions of dollars in profit over the past three months. According to their earnings reports released today, the big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — earned a combined $30.2 billion during the first quarter of 2013, or $331 million per day. Cumulatively, Big Oil profits were 6 percent lower than the first quarter of 2012 due to lower gasoline and oil prices, but these companies still earned a combined $229,832 every minute from January through March. This is more than what 95 percent of American households earn in an entire year.

Nearly one-third of these profits were used to repurchase companies’ stock, which only serves to pad the pockets of senior executives and the largest shareholders. The big five oil companies are also sitting on $82 billion in cash reserves, according to reports from the Securities and Exchange Commission for each company. While making these huge profits, BP and Exxon are the culprits in ongoing major oil disasters that are affecting the Gulf Coast and Arkansas.

Big Oil behaving badly again

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Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress. Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant to the Energy team at the Center. Thanks to Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Program at the Center for American Progress.

The Earth’s atmosphere will soon contain more than 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the first time in human history. In related news, another large oil company made billions of dollars selling the world more fossil fuels.

Royal Dutch Shell pulled in nearly $8 billion in profits for the first quarter of this year, a 3.5 percent jump from the same three months last year. The corporation is Europe’s largest oil and gas company. The higher profits were made possible, per the BBC, from “strong refining and trading performances” and higher natural gas prices in the United States. Shell is looking to double its share in the global gas business:

Shell now has about 7 percent of the world L.N.G. business, with ambitions to more than double that share through new projects and acquisitions. Last year, L.N.G. and related businesses earned Shell $9.4 billion of its $25.1 billion in profit.

CEO Peter Voser, who started as CEO in 2004, announced his retirement next year, and warned the industry of “significant” price volatility due to global instability. Here are some key facts on Shell from this quarter:

• Shell raked in $7.95 billion in profits in Q1. Fox News focused on the fact that “net profits” were down from $8.74 billion to $8.18 billion from the first quarter of last year.
• Bloomberg’s survey of 11 analysts predicted Shell would make just $6.4 billion.
• Oil and gas production was up 2 percent from first quarter 2012, to 3.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
• The company has $17.6 billion in cash-on-hand.
• Shell received a $200 million annual tax break in 2011.
• Dividends increased 5 percent from first quarter 2012, while Shell spent half a billion dollars to buy back 16.1 million shares.
• Outgoing CEO Voser’s pay package, when combined with a significant bonus from last year, totaled $6.7 million. Bonus stock shares add millions to the total package.
• Shell spent over $2 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2013. For context, Shell was the top lobbying spender of the oil and gas industry last year, totaling $14.4 million.

What does Shell have to look forward to this year? It will partner with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to develop the Bab gas field, which contains “sour gas, a poisonous and foul smelling product.” One thing it will not be doing is drilling in the Arctic Ocean. After spending about $5 billion on preparing to drill in such risky conditions, Shell suspended operations last year and announced it would not attempt to drill again in 2013. Other oil companies are starting to realize Arctic offshore drilling is a bad idea as well.

Exxon, cleaning up another oil spill from the Pegasus tar sands oil pipeline. (Credit: KAIT)

ExxonMobil has now confirmed that on Tuesday, the Pegasus pipeline that has been out of service since it spilled thousands of barrels of oil into Mayflower, Arkansas in March spilled some more into a yard in Missouri. In the town of Doniphan about 190 miles north of Mayflower, a resident reported seeing some oil and dead vegetation in the yard. Though small in scope, perhaps as little as 42 gallons, the spill is a reminder that oil is messy, tar sands oil particularly so, and transporting it across the country is extremely risky.

More pressing is the missing oil in Mayflower from the spill last month. The Sierra Club requested the accident incident report, which said that 3,000 barrels of oil (some 126,000 gallons) have not been recovered no matter how energetic Exxon’s response was:

Despite a massive cleanup effort in the Mayflower, Arkansas, neighborhood, the federal pipeline safety agency reports that ExxonMobil has recovered only 2,000 of the total 5,000 barrels of spilled tar sands crude. The accident incident report, which the agency shared with the Sierra Club after a Freedom of Information Act request, gives new insight into the size of the spill and the ineffectiveness of the cleanup effort. The report reveals that in total 83 people were evacuated from their homes, emergency response took 40 minutes, the pipeline was operating at 708 pounds of pressure when it burst, and 2,000 barrels reached local waterways.

The Pegasus pipeline was built to carry diesel fuel in 1947, Exxon converted the pipeline to carry tar sands crude and reversed its flow in 2006. In 2011, the federal pipeline safety agency fined Exxon $26,500 for failure to properly inspect a section of the line.

The report also states that even though there are at least 3,000 unrecovered barrels of oil, the current “estimated cost of public and non-Operator private property damage” is $0. At the same time, when ClimateProgress reported on the tax loophole that allows oil companies like Exxon to avoid paying into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund because tar sands oil is not classified as oil, Exxon’s response was that it was “paying all valid claims relating to the spill.” They even doubled down and tweeted as much. But Exxon’s opinion of what a constitutes a “valid” claim is key here.

The oil in this pipeline is not paying a cent per barrel into the cleanup fund created to be the backstop for corporate intransigence: “When the responsible party is unknown or refuses to pay, funds from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund can be used to cover removal costs or damages resulting from discharges of oil.”

Last month, local residents filed a lawsuit against Exxon seeking $5 million in damages. The cleanup is still ongoing, and many residents have still not been allowed back into their homes a month after the spill. In fact, Exxon has offered to buy some of the affected homes.

Exxon's tar sands oil spills into a cove of Lake Conway, Arkansas. (Credit: Greenpeace Photo by Karen E. McCall)

Those 3,000 barrels, or 126,000 gallons of heavy tar sands crude oil, went somewhere. Exxon acknowledges that it did spill into a cove near Lake Conway. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel confirmed that the cove does connect to Lake Conway. Third-party observers have noted that this means there is oil flowing into the Arkansas River.

Exxon points to testing from the Arkansas DEP that find no oil in Lake Conway, but those tests only sample the top and bottom of the Lake. Other tests sampling the whole water column have found oil in Lake Conway. If the spill has spread beyond Mayflower, an apologetic “community newsletter” featuring the release of selected ducks and turtles into marshland will not be enough.

While Exxon’s Valdez spill more than 20 years ago was much larger that the Mayflower spill, the company was rebuffing claims of liability for future losses as recently as 2011.

Exxon pulled in $9.5 billion in pure profits in the first quarter of this year.

BP announced its 2013 first-quarter profits this morning, reporting earnings of $4.2 billion — down 10 percent from this time last year but higher than analysts’ forecasts.

Here are some key facts about BP’s profits:

• The company is sitting on nearly $28 billion in cash reserves.
• In the first three months of 2013, BP spent $834 million buying back its own stock.
• Meanwhile, worldwide oil production decreased to 2.3 million barrels per day, 5 percent lower than the first quarter of 2012.
• BP’s CEO Bob Dudley raked in $2.7 million in 2012.
• In 2012, BP gave over $400,000 in federal campaign contributions, with 59 percent going to Republicans. They also spent nearly $9 million on lobbying.
• The company received an estimated $300 million annual tax break for 2011.

April 20th marked the third anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and spewed 210 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of 87 days.

In November 2012, BP agreed to pay a $4.5 billion settlement in criminal charges related to the spill: the largest criminal penalty in history. But a separate, and much larger civil trial, is still underway for Clean Water Act violations and is expected to continue well into this year. Record-setting fines for this trial could reach up to $17 billion if BP is found guilty of gross negligence. On top of that, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi are seeking an additional $34 billion for economic and property damage under the Oil Pollution Act.

The Daily Beast recently detailed the extreme health effects related to pouring 1.8 million gallons of toxic chemicals into the ocean in the wake of the spill. Corexit, a “dispersant,” was used to keep oil from reaching the Gulf Coast shorelines. In the process, it caused lasting neurological impairments, pulmonary problems, and many other serious ailments for hundreds of cleanup workers and coastal residents. The author, Mark Hertsgaard, explained that BP officials were told exactly how hazardous the chemical was, and lied about it. He told MSNBC in a recent interview that it will be an uphill battle for many people who have incurred huge hospital bills and are still suffering. “BP set aside roughly $8 billion for medical claims,” he said, “but most of the illnesses that these people are suffering from are not covered under that settlement.”

The BP disaster had a deep and lasting health and economic impacts throughout the Gulf Coast region. However, a recent column in the Wall Street Journal editorialized that drilling activity there hasn’t changed much since 2010. The Obama administration’s “toughened” drilling regulations “have amounted to little more than a speed bump for the energy industry,” which is “booming in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The next, and last, of the Big Five companies to announce its first quarter profit will be Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday May 2nd.

ConocoPhillips announced its 2013 first-quarter profits this morning, reporting earnings of $2.1 billion — a 28 percent drop from the first three months of 2012.

In 2012, ConocoPhillips earned $8.4 billion in profits, while the company’s new CEO, Ryan Lance, received a staggering $19.3 million in compensation. To put this huge figure in perspective, a worker earning minimum wage would need to work for 1,279 years to make as much money.

ConocoPhillips received an estimated $600 million in special tax breaks in 2011. Lobbying efforts by the oil and gas industry have secured these tax benefits over and over again. In the last year alone, ConocoPhillips spent $3.9 million on lobbying expenditures.

Here are some additional facts about ConocoPhillips:

• Conoco is sitting on $5.4 billion in cash reserves.
• Despite earning $2.1 billion this quarter, the company’s oil production has decreased. Conoco produced 2 percent less oil than this time last year.
• Last year, the company spent 61 percent of its 2012 profit — or $5.1 billion — buying back its own stock, enriching its largest shareholders and executives.
• Since 2011, ConocoPhillips has spent over $20 million lobbying Congress, making it a top spender in the oil and gas industry.
• Conoco paid an 18 percent effective federal tax rate in 2011. This is nearly half of the 35 percent standard top corporate tax rate.

Exxon Mobil also announced it first quarter profits today. Chevron will be the next of the Big Five companies to announce their quarterly earnings on Friday, April 26.

One month after dumping 500,000 gallons of tar sands crude oil from a ruptured pipeline in Arkansas, the most valuable and profitable corporation in the world ExxonMobil announced higher first quarter profits. Exxon earned $9.5 billion in the first quarter, compared to $9.45 billion last year, and Exxon’s total oil and natural gas production declined 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Exxon is exempt from paying taxes toward the oil spill liability fund that helps clean up spills like in Arkansas, where wildlife have been killed and covered by oil. The 1980 law exemption applies to diluted bitumen so companies escape paying the 8-cents-per-barrel fee to the fund that helps clean up hundreds of spills each year. At the federal level, Exxon’s tax rate comes to only 13 percent.

Here is how else Exxon spends its dollars, and what it receives in return:

– Exxon spent $12,970,000 on lobbying in 2012 to protect low tax rates and block pollution controls and safeguards for public health. In the first three months of 2013, Exxon spent $4.84 million lobbying.

– The company sent $3.6 million in total political contributions to PACs, candidates, and outside groups for the 2012 election cycle, and 89 percent of contributions went to Republicans. It has spent over $76,000 for the 2014 cycle so far.

– Exxon receives an estimated $600 million in annual federal tax breaks. In 2011, Exxon paid just 13 percent in taxes. The company paid no federal income tax in 2009, despite $45.2 billion record profits.

– In the first quarter, Exxon bought back $5.6 billion of its stock, or 59 percent of its profit, which enriches the largest shareholders and executives of the company.

– This year, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson received a 15 percent raise to a $40.3 million salary.

By Shiva Polefka

Today, Saturday, April 20th, marks the third anniversary of the explosion aboard BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and set off the largest accidental spill in the oil industry’s history. The ruptured Macondo well spewed nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of the summer, ultimately fouling more than 1,000 miles of Gulf of Mexico coastline and bringing the vast fishing and tourism industries of the region to a standstill, before the Macondo well was finally sealed and “killed” on September 19, 2010.

Following the Deepwater Horizon blowout, President Obama appointed a panel of experts that convened as the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Its final report, issued in January 2011, revealed the irresponsible practices of BP and its contractors, uncovered a lack of federal oversight, and provided a comprehensive set of policy reforms that would make the offshore energy industry safer.

Earlier this week, members of the Commission, now acting independently as a group called Oil Spill Commission Action (OSCA), released their second “Report Card” on the progress major actors were making to implement their recommendations.

So, three years after the catastrophe, what has changed? Have we acted on the painful lessons taught by Deepwater Horizon? Are government and industry leaders taking steps to reduce the risk of another destructive spill or blowout? The answers are decidedly mixed.

Department of the Interior and Industry

OSCA awarded the Obama administration a B, in recognition that the Department of the Interior has enacted some of the safety reforms recommended within the official report, and brought about a 15 percent increase in offshore rig inspections occurring in the Gulf.

OSCA gave the oil industry a B-, noting that it has voluntarily contributed in meaningful ways to the reduction of risk future oil spills in response to Deepwater Horizon, by implementing new safety standards and readying four oil well capping systems for the Gulf of Mexico like the one ultimately used to stanch the Macondo well’s blowout. Before Deepwater Horizon, no such systems existed.

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