EXXON'S LATEST PROFIT-SEEKING MOVE: SELLING UNLIMITED OIL ABROAD DESPITE SHORTAGES AT HOME

[Mainecat]

EXXON'S LATEST PROFIT-SEEKING MOVE: SELLING UNLIMITED OIL ABROAD DESPITE SHORTAGES AT HOME

Exxon wants an unrestrained, free market approach after making $39 billion in profits. 

Eric Gardner 
October 1 2022 

Excerpt: 

Energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is protesting one of the Biden administration’s moves to drive down gas prices: reducing the amount of U.S. fuel that’s shipped to customers overseas. 

In a letter this week to the Energy Department, Exxon pushed back against the idea that it should be limiting fuel exports abroad to help lower gas prices in the U.S., where oil and petroleum stocks are at their lowest levels in years. Instead, Exxon CEO Darren Woods argued that the administration should embrace free market policies to help ease oil shortages in America. 

Exxon management has good reason to push for a hands-off approach: what’s best for the oil industry isn’t always what’s best for the country. In the last 12 months, Exxon generated nearly $39 billion in profits while consumers faced surging costs at the pump. Thanks primarily to high gas prices, the company has paid out over $21 billion to investors through dividends and stock repurchases. At the same time, Exxon significantly pulled back spending on capital investments like refineries—reducing overall capacity and ultimately generating higher gas prices in the process. 

IT WAS ONCE COMMON FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO RESTRICT OIL EXPORTS 

In 1975, faced with raising gas prices, President Ford signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. The law increased the domestic oil supply by banning crude oil exports unless approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce. No exports to countries outside of North America ever received authorization. 

In 2015, “as part of a grand bargain that includes tax breaks for renewable energy companies and refiners,” President Obama repealed the law—allowing American energy companies to export without limits. 

THE U.S. IS NOW A NET EXPORTER OF OIL 

In 2018, the United States started to export more oil and refined fuels than it imported. The occasion marked a “symbolic milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just 10 years ago.” 

https://perfectunion.us/exxon-fuel-exports/ 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Mainecat

[Crnr2Crnr]

fucking Biden! 😡

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anler]

Is Hunter on the Board of Directors of Exxon now?

[Mainecat]

7 minutes ago, Anler said:

Is Hunter on the Board of Directors of Exxon now?

Hillary Clinton is the CEO

[Doug]

And the message your hero sends to oil companies.

 

[toslow]

7 minutes ago, Doug said:

And the message your hero sends to oil companies.

 

Is he bending over to sniff her

[Mainecat]

39 billion profit

[Doug]

10 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

39 billion profit

Did you get in on that.  I did.

[Snake]

Source:

Who We Are

 

Our editorial team is committed to putting working people at the center of the stories we tell.

 

• Faiz Shakir | formerly Bernie 2020, ACLU, Senator Harry Reid
• Sam Sanders | formerly Groundwork Collaborative
• Nico Pitney | formerly NowThis, HuffPost
• Joshua Miller-Lewis | formerly Bernie Sanders
• Malea Stenzel Gilligan | formerly Bernie 2020, National Wildlife Federation, VoteVets
• Paula Pecorella | formerly Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service
• Max Berger | formerly Elizabeth Warren
• Megan Herschlein | formerly NowThis
• Chai Dingari | formerly New York Times, HuffPost
• Bianca Recto | formerly Bernie Sanders
• Jordan Zakarin | formerly NBCUniversal
• Libby Rainey | formerly Democracy Now!
• Nicole Bardasz | formerly Ed Markey
• Sam Delgado | formerly Texas Democratic Party
• Ian McKenna | formerly NowThis, CNN
• Jodi Clemens | formerly Bernie 2020, People’s Action
• Anthony Mascorro | formerly Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
• Gerald Lane | formerly NowThis
• Sean Morrow | formerly NowThis
• Eric Gardner | Writer and former business consultant
• Brooke Shuman | formerly HuffPost, Interference Archive
• Josh Hirschfeld-Kroen | formerly Sunrise Movement
• Aída Chávez | formerly The Nation, The Intercept
• Savannah Fortune | formerly Texas AFL-CIO

[Mainecat]

And the subsidies……oh shit.

[Kivalo]

If you take taxpayer money then you should be legally obligated to service the tax payer first. Fuck this take a subsidy and then let the shit irds in another country realize the benefits.

[spin_dry]

I can remember a time when contempt for big oil was a bipartisan thing. Not no more!! 

[BOHICA]

3 hours ago, spin_dry said:

I can remember a time when contempt for big oil was a bipartisan thing. Not no more!! 

I’m at the point I give 2 fucks what big oil does.  Not much they do really matters much at all to my budget.   Very interesting watching all the crying, whining, and all the complain about fuel and energy cost when the solution to that is right in front of their face

Edited October 6, 2022 by BOHICA

[Sleepr2]

8 hours ago, Mainecat said:

39 billion profit

How much did the government make on the sales of that gas?

[racer254]

11 hours ago, spin_dry said:

I can remember a time when contempt for big oil was a bipartisan thing. Not no more!! 

I can remember when political parties didn't decided to bankrupt the oil industry

This is all on the biden administration.

  04:37 PM ET 12/07/2018
Energy Security: Last week, the U.S. exported more oil than we imported, for the first time in 70-plus years. And it happened not because of decades of federal "energy policies," but despite them.
X

Since Richard Nixon was in the White House, presidents have pushed national energy plans that, they said, would reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. These plans all had one thing in common — they all assumed that increased domestic oil production couldn't solve the problem.

Instead, from Nixon on down, Republican and Democratic presidents declared that the only way to achieve energy independence was through some combination of strict conservation measures and "alternative" forms of energy.
Energy Independence Promises

In 1973, for example, Nixon declared that "the answer to our long-term needs lies in developing new forms of energy." He promised to spend $10 billion researching it. That year, Nixon also announced "a conservation drive" that he said would cut personal energy consumption by 5%. And he proposed creating a new Department of Energy.

A few years later, Jimmy Carter signed the Energy Security Act of 1980, which created the disastrous Synthetic Fuel Corporation, calling it "the cornerstone of U.S. energy policy." He imposed fuel economy mandates on cars. And he urged people to turn down their thermostats in the winter.
Bill Clinton proposed creating "energy independent areas" that relied on renewables, efficiency, and homegrown energy. He claimed these would "prove to the rest of the world that energy independence built on clean energy can occur."
George W. Bush said in 2006 that "America is addicted to oil." The next year he signed the "Energy Independence and Security Act," which imposed tougher fuel-efficiency standards on vehicles, mandated ethanol use in gasoline, and imposed various new conservation mandates.

Barack Obama continued to advocate these well-trod prescriptions, while repeatedly insisting that America could not "drill our way" to independence.

None of it worked. Except for a brief respite in the early 1980s (when Ronald Reagan decontrolled oil prices) oil imports steadily increased.
A Radical Change

Then President Donald Trump took office and announced a radical departure from 50 years of received energy "wisdom." In a speech to the Energy Department months after taking office, he said that for decades leaders peddled the myth of energy scarcity. Most of it is self-imposed, he said. What the country needs, he said, isn't "alternative" energy, or new austerity measures. It's a government that "promotes energy development." Trump listed actions he was taking to lift federal impediments to energy production.

Lo and behold, Trump was right.

Advanced drilling technologies have opened vast expanses of domestic oil and natural gas. And as domestic production skyrocketed, imports have been steadily dropping.

Trump doesn't deserve the credit for this boom. Oil companies do. But unlike his predecessors, Trump understands that energy independence doesn't require yet another "energy plan" that tells people to wear more sweaters in the winter and wastes money on "new" energy sources.

It just requires government to get out of the way so that oil companies can get at the vast supplies of good old oil and gas right under U.S. soil.

 

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/energy-independence-trump/