Giving Us A Lube Job

At least they were sworn in this time.

Oh, but oil company mergers are needed so that our ever growing economy can continue to provide opportunities, realize development efficiencies and streamline operations, right? Oh, and bigger profits also? Why, how on earth did that happen?

Anyone who doubts the clout of these individuals should read about their reaction to Dubya’s most recent claim in his State of the Union address that this country should work towards energy independence.

But still, of course, the oil company executives continue to search for sources of oil to keep our economy growing (for who is the big question, though). What else can you expect from such great Americans (as noted here):

(Sen. Carl) Levin (chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations) cited a 1999 internal memo from BP Amoco PLC that said "there are significant opportunities to influence the crude supply/demand balance," two of which were to "offer supply agreements [with other major oil companies] in exchange for [refining] capacity shutdown" and to "move product into southern Ontario." But Ross Pillari, BP's group vice president for U.S. marketing in Warrenville, Ill., told the panel that "all these suggestions were rejected."

Not satisfied, Levin asked, "Would you agree these proposals are outrageous?"

"Yes, I would," Pillari said. "People were counseled on the inappropriateness of these suggestions."

In a confidential 1998 memo discovered by subcommittee investigators during their 10-month probe of gas pricing in the United States, a Marathon Oil Co. "Short-Term Price Outlook" said: "As OPEC and other exporters' efforts to rein in output began bearing fruit, Nature stepped in to lend the oil producers a helping hand in the form of Hurricane Georges, which caused some major refinery closures, threatened off-shore oil production and imports, and generally lent some bullishness to the oil futures market."

"This is an amazing document," Levin said about the reference to the hurricane that killed hundreds of people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in September 1998. He asked Gary R. Heminger, president of Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, "What do you say about that?"

"I apologize that my company would take pleasure in a hurricane," Heminger quickly replied. "We would not want anything to happen to anyone."

Sounds to me like someone "got their hand caught in the cookie jar" (tsk tsk).

And I was motivated to stand up and salute Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas…surprised?) over his introduction of the “Gasoline for America’s Security” bill (GAS for short…couldn’t Frank Luntz come up with anything catchier than that?) as noted here (also note that I didn’t specify the finger I used to “salute” Barton):

A number of the bill's provisions were removed during house debates, most notably a proposal to weaken air pollution controls for thousands of industrial facilities. This would have occurred through a rollback of the so-called "new source review" program, which dates back to amendments to the 1977 Clean Air Act.

Chris Cooper of GRACE questioned whether these measures--considered more extreme by environmental advocates--were only included to make other aspects of the bill seem less so.

"Sometimes you have to wonder if the political strategy of the industry is to put in something so damaging to the environment to give cover to moderate conservatives," he said.

Other aspects of the bill would instruct the president to designate new refinery sites on federal lands, perhaps in national parks or retired military bases. The bill calls for the expedited approval of refinery permits by moving legal debates from state and local courts to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C, and it would allow refineries to appeal to the government for compensation if operations are stalled by unforeseen regulation or litigation.

No new refinery has been built in the United States since 1976 and memos from the 1990s reveal that major energy companies warned they needed to reduce the number of refineries in order to boost profits, according to Public Citizen.

But of course the first and foremost concern of these titans of industry is meeting our country’s growing energy needs. Of course. Right.

And I’m the tooth fairy.