Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage

[cal04]

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter profit yesterday, as members of Congress outraged over high gasoline prices hastened to propose measures that would boost taxes on oil firms, open new areas to drilling and provide rebates to taxpayers but would not necessarily alter prices at the pumps.

The earnings outstripped the oil giant's profit in the first quarter of last year. Given current oil market conditions, analysts said, that puts Exxon Mobil on track to break the $36 billion record profit it made last year. Meanwhile, President Bush sought to show that he was responding to calls for action in the face of rising gasoline prices. While visiting a gasoline station in Biloxi, Miss., Bush renewed his call for Congress to give him the authority to "raise" mileage standards for all passenger cars. White House officials said later, however, that they didn't know when or how the president would use that authority.

Congress has the authority to approve changes in mileage standards for passenger cars, and the executive branch can set them for light trucks without approval from Congress. But neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in raising passenger car standards, which were set in the 1970s and haven't changed since 1985. In March, the Bush administration said it would raise average fuel economy standards by 1.9 miles a gallon for sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans for models in 2008 through 2011, a long-awaited move that environmentalists said was too modest.

In Congress, anger over gasoline prices brought action in the Senate to a screeching halt yesterday, with Democrats interrupting debate over an emergency military spending bill to protest a key oil company subsidy. In a highly unusual move, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) waged a solo filibuster on the Senate floor in an attempt to force a vote on a provision that would halt support for what Wyden said were about $35 billion for oil and gas companies. "This is the big one, folks, in terms of energy subsidies," Wyden said during the five-hour standoff. "This is the one where there is no logical case . . . when oil is $70 per barrel."

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042700534.html

[DanCa]

1. Can I see The chimp and Cheneys tax returns.

Let's blow em up at put em on bill boards across America.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

2. "While visiting a gasoline station in Biloxi, Miss., Bush

petted a puppy. Immediately after the cameras were turned off and the fake crowd was dispersed, he drop-kicked the tiny animal over the top of his limo, apparently thinking it like all his other props was made of cheap plastic.

As usual, he was wrong."

[radfringe]

5. bigger story

he takes the JET, flies to the gulf, pounds in a couple of nails and poses at a gas station while blathering about gas prices/supplies

this was a totally unnecessary trip for promoting Gulf-aid and addresssing gas problem -- how much fuel did it take and what as the cost to TAXPAYERS?

W is for Waste - waste of fuel, waste of money, waste of time.

[orwell]

3. Raise mileage standards...

...wouldn't that be another in a long line of flip flops?

I thought conservation was, in Darth Cheney's vernacular, a "personal virtue."

Didn't this same crew strike down raising CAFE standards when the Dem-controlled Senate proposed it?

Spin, rinse, repeat...

[Voltaire99]

4. "Members of Congress outraged over high gasoline prices"

Whores outraged over sex? I think not.

[varkam]

6. Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage

Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage
Exxon Mobil Posts First-Quarter Rise
Steven Mufson and Shailagh Murray
Friday, April 28, 2006
Washington Post
Profits, Prices Spur Oil Outrage

---------

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported $8.4 billion in first-quarter profit yesterday, as members of Congress outraged over high gasoline prices hastened to propose measures that would boost taxes on oil firms, open new areas to drilling and provide rebates to taxpayers but would not necessarily alter prices at the pumps.

The earnings outstripped the oil giant's profit in the first quarter of last year. Given current oil market conditions, analysts said, that puts Exxon Mobil on track to break the $36 billion record profit it made last year.

Meanwhile, President Bush sought to show that he was responding to calls for action in the face of rising gasoline prices. While visiting a gasoline station in Biloxi, Miss., Bush renewed his call for Congress to give him the authority to "raise" mileage standards for all passenger cars. White House officials said later, however, that they didn't know when or how the president would use that authority.

Congress has the authority to approve changes in mileage standards for passenger cars, and the executive branch can set them for light trucks without approval from Congress. But neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in raising passenger car standards, which were set in the 1970s and haven't changed since 1985. In March, the Bush administration said it would raise average fuel economy standards by 1.9 miles a gallon for sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans for models in 2008 through 2011, a long-awaited move that environmentalists said was too modest.

....

[Robbie Michaels]

7. Meanwhile, Back On The Ranch

This is what I paid for gas last night. In some parts of San Diego, gas is nearly twenty cents higher than what's posted on this sign I found at a Chevron station.

[salin]

8. GOP's solution? Do nothing, but give taxpayers a $100 rebate.

So what if you are now paying a third or more for each gallon of gas than you did a year ago. We don't need long term investment in developing alternative energy sources, the oil corps are doing great - and don't the GOP always tell us that what is good for big corporations, is ultimately good fo us? :sarcasm: