Picking the public’s pocket
If you think fossil fuel corporations are content to take your money at the pump, you’re underestimating them:
During the presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump gathered oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago estate and promised them a powerful return on their investment if they raised $1 billion to help him retake the White House.
The industry never ponied up quite that much, but nevertheless, six months into Mr. Trump’s presidency, oil and gas companies are poised to reap multibillion-dollar windfalls from the administration’s actions so far.
A sweeping domestic policy bill that Mr. Trump signed into law this month includes about $18 billion in new and expanded tax incentives for the oil and gas industry, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyzes tax policy for Congress. It also includes billions of dollars in tax breaks that aren’t specific to oil and gas but were top oil industry priorities as the law was being negotiated.
It reduces the amount of money that energy companies must pay the federal government for the oil and gas they extract on public lands and waters, a change valued at about $6 billion, according to one analysis. The bill also delays penalties for oil companies that fail to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that leaks from wells, representing about $1.5 billion in benefits for the industry, the Congressional Budget Office found.
“The final bill was positive for us across all of our top priorities,” said Aaron Padilla, the vice president of corporate policy at the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s chief lobbying organization….
A New York Times analysis found that the oil industry and related interests made $75 million in direct donations to Mr. Trump and his campaign committees.
“In return, the president has directed the full regulatory, legal, and financial weight of the federal government toward helping his fossil fuel executive friends get rich at the expense of a healthy and habitable planet for our kids and grandkids,” [Senator Bernie] Sanders said in a statement.
Read the sordid details here.
