Let's end polluter welfare

How much money will you give to the fossil fuel industry today?

A lot — even if you don't fill up your gas tank. $30 million of our tax dollars go to oil, coal and gas polluters every day in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes.

Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Keith Ellison introduced the End Polluter Welfare Act to end these wasteful giveaways. Congress' inaction has already cost us nearly a billion dollars, and the price goes up another $30 million every day.The details of polluter subsidies and giveaways are just unbelievable:
Congress' continued inaction will cost us $110 billion over ten years, in needless giveaways to the most profitable on the planet.

Just the five largest oil companies alone made more than $1 trillion in profits, just in the last five years. Some of these companies paid no taxes for some of these years.1

These fossil fuel companies don't need the extra help. But for them, the math is very simple:

• Oil, gas and coal companies gave $106,993,6862 in direct campaign contributions to Congress, and spent $1,077,417,6933,4 on lobbying over the last 10 years.
• Congress gives them $110,000,000,000 of our money in polluter welfare over the next 10 years.

Polluters get a huge return on their investment. We pay the price.

As Republicans and some Democrats continue using growing budget deficits to call for brutal cuts to vital social programs, it is astonishing and shameful that these same politicians are protecting billions upon billions in wasteful polluter welfare to the richest, most dangerous industry on the planet.

We lose $12 billion dollars by allowing fossil fuel polluters to take deductions aimed at helping American manufacturers, by claiming they are manufacturers. We lose $10.6 billion by not setting fair royalties for oil drilling leases in federal waters — currently we give many leases away for free! We lose $6.8 billion by subsidizing oil-spills; allowing companies like BP to deduct billions in clean-up costs from its tax bill after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that did catastrophic damage to the Gulf of Mexico.5

Those are just a few of the $110 billion worth of giveaways that the End Polluter Welfare Act would end. And unlike other tax breaks which expire after a set time period, the fossil fuel industry has rigged the system so that many of their giveaways will continue indefinitely if Congress fails to act.

Of course, the biggest loophole of all remains wide open — that which allows oil, gas and coal companies to freely dump climate-change causing greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere, at no cost to them whatsoever.

Our government is supposed to subsidize programs and behaviors that we want to encourage, for the good of our nation. Yet as our planet heats up, we continue subsidizing the cash-rich fossil fuel companies endangering our future at six times the rate of the renewable energy investments that are our best hope.

We cannot afford any of this. And as many in Congress continue defending these needless giveaways, we must let them know that, for the sake of their jobs, they cannot afford it either.

Exactly what are they polluting?

our air...our waters...the planet!

Well just to start, you didn't offer any thing other than conjecture that they are "polluters". In the USA they have many rules establishing what they can and can not do. So if you want to consider you are exhaling CO2, you are in fact a polluter by just being alive. So not buying into that aspect of the post.
Now all the oil companies pay taxes. So your "they didn't even pay taxes" is incorrect. Like all business they have write off's (LIKE ALL BUSINESSES), that's tax law.
So it sounds more like a made up rant that a fact based story.

see my thread "dang oil companies."

Well in the USA there is the EPA which was created by republicans (Nixon) in 1970. Now the other republicans (teabags) want to get rid of it!
Oh, you asked what do they pollute? Well how about BP and the Gulf of Mexico? Do you know that they use heated sea water to fill up the wells and build pressure to bring the oil up easier? Well those pipes that come from the ocean are not very well taken care of, and they burst pretty often. And when they do, they kill everything in the area. I have witnessed that several times.
Do you know that the oil companies are the ones that promote corruption in poor countries the most? Do you know that? Do YOU? I've been there and seen that!

All sounds a bit opinionated instead of factual as it was stated before by the very same people to try to stick to factual information. For some reason this post reminds me of the saying "do as I say, not as I do".
Ha! Go to Google and type "do as I say, not as I do" and a Wikipedia page comes up titled liberal hypocrisy! Lol!

here it is .....

Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal HypocrisyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter SchweizerDo as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy (ISBN 0385513496) is a book written by author Peter Schweizer and published by Doubleday in 2005. The book profiles alleged contradictions and hypocritical behaviors of several famous individuals in the United States who the author claims are liberals. People profiled in the book include Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader, Al Franken, Cornel West, Michael Moore, George Soros, Noam Chomsky, Barbra Streisand and Gloria Steinem. Schweizer contends that many liberals publicly promote liberal values regarding the environment, affirmative action, racism, sexism and finance, but practice the opposite in their private and professional lives.

[edit] Summary This section requires expansion.

Notable issues that Schweizer addresses in the work are Noam Chomsky's acceptance of money from prominent institutions whose policies he opposes (such as the Pentagon), living in an expensive home, and his visitation of socialist states such as Cuba. Chomsky considers himself an anarchist, not a liberal. Schweizer, in the rest of the work, makes similarly-toned accusations against individuals the book focuses on, particularly surrounding political issues such as environmentalism, labor, and taxation. After the book's publication, Chomsky talked to Schweizer about his creation of a trust fund for his daughters and grandchildren.[1] In Schweizer's follow up discussion with Chomsky, Schweizer reveals that even though Chomsky abhors corporations and refers to them as "fascist", Chomsky's own retirement fund is invested in large capitalization NYSE companies and the TIAA-CREF stock fund. Schweizer points out:

A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.[1]
In addition, during his publicity tours, Schweizer spoke of Arianna Huffington's use of private jets for transportation and excessive energy consumption, despite her public pro-environmentalist stance.[2][3]

[edit] Response to publicationSchweizer's book was generally well-received, showing up on the New York Times bestsellers list in early 2006 and garnering praise from pundits such as Bill O'Reilly.[citation needed]

A television station in San Francisco, KGO-TV, reviewed Schweizer's claims against Nancy Pelosi. It found Schweizer's allegation that the workers at Pelosi's vineyard were not union workers to be true. The station also reported that the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act prevents Pelosi from assisting her workers to form a union or discussing a union contract with them unless they unionized on their own. The investigating reporter claimed that Pelosi paid her workers more than the largest union winery in the region.[4] Schweitzer responded, “It’s not my responsibility to go and find out how every single particular circumstance is handled on the Pelosi vineyard.”.[4]

Al Franken wrote to the conservative publication National Review to dispute Schweizer's claims that he does not hire minorities. He gave several examples of minority employees who have worked on his radio and television shows.[5]


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Of course, that would come up. The internet is savvy and knows you are right wing Republicans. When you google something, it plays to your interest. It does that to Democratic leaning people, as well.

Better go to google and type "Santorum"!

What I've seen is not opinionated, it's a fact! So the oils spill in the gulf by British Petroleum is an opinion? The payoffs that these companies do in poor countries are just an opinion? The bursted salt water pipes right here in the conroe area are opinions?
You are in a bubble!

BP had a spill. Do you not think they did a good job on the clean up? Do you not think they took responsibility?

Certainly it would be better if the spill had not happened, but isn't their oil out there seeping from the floor all on its own?

Most of you big fat hypocrites drive around in your big fat SUV's, live in your big fat homes, and wag your fingers at all the fat cat's and polluters.

The ignorance here is off the scale.

That is life here in the Disneyland of capitalism.

Thebug- you are obviously listening to the wrong people.

Sstonetx-is still like to know what comes up when you type that saying into your browser....I bet its the same.

Definition of SARCASM

1
: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2
a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual

BP had an accident. A terrible one, but still an accident.

Also if you google largest polluter in the USA, it is NOT a energy company.
Mining apparently is way worse.
Oh and horrors, the largest polluter is mining things for green energy (oh what a tangled web we weave).