ExxonMobil is richer than you are.
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ExxonMobil reported first-quarter earnings of $10.9 billion
(See ExxonMobil/Fortune500)
Just to help wrap your brain around that, ExxonMobil's profits for just the first 90 days of 2008 are enough to provide every man, woman and child in New Mexico - that's 2 million people - with a full tank of gas EVERY single day for that same time period.
A Pew Charitable Trust survey, conducted in late June, shows surprising new support for increased oil exploration, in the face of $4 per gallon gas prices.
"This shows the real impact of higher gas prices on the public," said Carroll Doherty, associate director for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which commissioned the telephone survey of 2,004 adults from June 18 to Sunday.
With many experts confirming that only about a quarter of lands currently leased for drilling are actually being utilized, it sounds like the call for new exploration is a bait-and-switch move to lock up new lands and paint the oil industry as the savior, rather than a key source of the problem.
Why are big oil and gas companies a source of the problem? Because they are absolutely ripping off American consumers and taxpayers. ExxonMobil - just one of the big five oil companies - will likely make a $40 billion profit this year. Shouldn't they shoulder the blame for rising gas prices when part of the $4 I pay per gallon is going straight into their pockets?
And before the free-market wingnuts start griping, it's also worth noting that these very same oil and gas companies are getting billions of dollars in tax breaks from you and me. Earlier this year, there was an effort to stop tax breaks of $18 billion to benefit just the top five oil and gas companies. This measure was strenuously opposed by Republicans and President Bush.
Someone's winning this game, and it isn't us. The oil and gas companies don't need new terrain to drill. They need a conscience.
(See ExxonMobil/Fortune500)
Just to help wrap your brain around that, ExxonMobil's profits for just the first 90 days of 2008 are enough to provide every man, woman and child in New Mexico - that's 2 million people - with a full tank of gas EVERY single day for that same time period.
A Pew Charitable Trust survey, conducted in late June, shows surprising new support for increased oil exploration, in the face of $4 per gallon gas prices.
"This shows the real impact of higher gas prices on the public," said Carroll Doherty, associate director for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which commissioned the telephone survey of 2,004 adults from June 18 to Sunday.
With many experts confirming that only about a quarter of lands currently leased for drilling are actually being utilized, it sounds like the call for new exploration is a bait-and-switch move to lock up new lands and paint the oil industry as the savior, rather than a key source of the problem.
Why are big oil and gas companies a source of the problem? Because they are absolutely ripping off American consumers and taxpayers. ExxonMobil - just one of the big five oil companies - will likely make a $40 billion profit this year. Shouldn't they shoulder the blame for rising gas prices when part of the $4 I pay per gallon is going straight into their pockets?
And before the free-market wingnuts start griping, it's also worth noting that these very same oil and gas companies are getting billions of dollars in tax breaks from you and me. Earlier this year, there was an effort to stop tax breaks of $18 billion to benefit just the top five oil and gas companies. This measure was strenuously opposed by Republicans and President Bush.
Someone's winning this game, and it isn't us. The oil and gas companies don't need new terrain to drill. They need a conscience.
