Tag Archives: Conoco Phillips

Big Oil Loves Tim Eyman

Big Oil loves Tim Eyman.  They love him so much they’re have given him $200,000 this year to protect their corporate profits and tax loopholes from the Washington State Legislature. They love it that he helped them two years ago prevent the Legislature from asking them to help clean up oil polluted stormwater in our state. They love it that voters said the Legislature needed a 2/3 vote to tax corporations and end profitable tax loopholes they have.

Eyman is busy carrying their water as he scurries to pay his minions to get signatures on I-1185 his “son” of 1053. I-1053 was passed by voters in 2010 and said the Legislature needed to get a 2/3 vote in both houses to raise new revenue or close any tax loopholes. For 2 years after an initiative passes it takes a 2/3 vote of the Legislature to amend an initiative. After that it takes a simple majority.

So Eyman is trying to put I-1185 before the voters to reset the clock for another 2 years.

The 2/3 vote requirement initially was in I-601 and then in I-960.  Both these measures barely passed 51% to 49%. Two years ago in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression and with high unemployment the measure passed with a 64% vote after opponents waited until the last few weeks to try to oppose it but it was too late.

Now voters can see the consequences of a no new taxes proposal which is what I-1185 is and what I-1053 is.  Austerity so to speak is another w0rd for protecting corporate profits while cutting services to the elderly, the sick and young kids.  Corporate interests like BP and Conoco Phillips continue to rack up huge profits and contribute to the increased concentration  of wealth in the hands of the few.

On April 4, 2012 BP Oil out of Chicago gave Eyman $100,000. Eyman immediately passed it on to his buddy Roy Ruffino at Citizen Solutions out of Olympia.  Citizen Solutions is paying signature gatherers $1.00 per signature and pocketing a fee for itself of course.

BP last year reported a net profit of $23.9 billion. $ 100,000 is peanuts to BP.

On April 20, 2012 Conoco Phillips added another $100,000,  Small peanuts to them also that they  can write off as a business expense. After expenses Conoco Phillips reported a 1st quarter Jan – March 2012 profit of $2.94 billion.

Isn’t it great that if you are a big corporation and you can buy yourself a place on the ballot and you can have friends like Tim Eyman to help you fool the public into supporting your corporate profits at the expense of diminishing public services that benefit the public.

Don’t sign I-1185!  Don’t support Big Oil’s power grab of the Washington State Legislature. Big Oil is not concerned about the well being of Washington State or its citizens. They are only concerned about increasing the bottom line of their business and their shareholders.

 

 

 

AARP Opposes Initiatives 1053 and 1107.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is opposing Tim Eyman and British Petroleum’s Initiative 1053 and the American Beverage Industry’s Initiative 1107. Both measures are based on greed, namely that large corporations are unwilling to help Washington citizens fund basic public services but are instead intent on increasing corporate profit. And they hope that the public is gullible enough to believe it is about reducing taxes for the average taxpayer. It’s not.

As AARP notes:

Out-of-state special interests are at it again. This November, Washington voters will be asked to vote on two initiatives that if passed, would lead to deep cuts to important services like health and long-term care for low income seniors and a quality education for our children and grandchildren.

Initiative 1107, funded by the American Beverage Association, and Initiative 1053, funded largely by out-of-state businesses like BP and big Wall Street banks, will threaten our state budget, cripple state government, and make it harder than ever to recover from the recession.

Times are tough enough already. In response to one of the worst economies in decades, we’ve already cut more than $4.4 billion from the state budget. As a result, 2,600 education jobs were eliminated, 44,000 people lost Basic Health Plan coverage, class sizes are soaring and college tuition has skyrocketed by nearly 30 percent.

Initiatives 1107 and 1053 would only make things worse. Further cuts will seriously harm the things that we value – more cuts in health care means more expensive emergency room use, and more cuts in education hurts our kids for generations to come.

Initiative 1053 is an attempt by large corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. They want to bank their profits and have the rest of us taxpayers pay for their cost of doing business in our state.

The Big Oil Companies like BP and Tesoro and Conoco Phillips paid for getting signatures to put I-1053 on the ballot. They did not do so to lower costs to average middle class taxpayers. They did so to try to make it impossible to allow Legislators to require them to help pay for cleaning up stormwater runoff polluted with the oil products they sell. They want you to believe I-1053 will lower your taxes, really all it will do is shift the tax burden and environmental health costs onto the citizens of Washington while Big Oil laughs all the way to the bank.

Vote NO on 1053 and make the Big Oil Companies pay the cost of cleaning up their waste before they bank their corporate profits taken out of our pocketbooks. Vote No on 1107.

Both measures are on the Nov 2, 2010 General Election Ballot in Washington State.

for additional information see:

http://www.stopgreed.org/

http://www.protectwashington.org/

http://www.voteno1053.com/

http://www.voteno1107.com/

Where Your Spare Change Went!

The headline on page 1 of the NY Times today blares out “At Exxon Mobil A Record Profit But no Fanfare”. Why should you not be surprised at the “Record Profit”? It’s the American way.

But in this case Exxon Mobil is not tooting it’s horn saying look at how successful we are – they are running ads in major newspapers trying to downplay their success. Because even they know their profit is excessive and obscene.

What is their success? Only that they set a record in accumulating $36 billion dollars in profits in 2005. And this isn’t the first time. They set a previous high in corporate profits last year of $25.53 billion dollars. In 2003 they made $20.93 billion dollars but this was only 5th in all time corporate profits for a year. Still they now own the record for making the most money in 3 out of the last 5 years.

Exxon Mobil said their overall profit rose over 40% last year. As Americans paid more for heating oil and gas how many do you think saw a 40% rise in their income? How many do you think instead saw an over 40% rise in the cost to heat their houses and drive their cars to work?

Is Exxon Mobil alone? Hardly? Last Thursday the NY Times carried a small article on page C6. Its headline was Profit Grows 51% for Conoco Philips.

On Jan 27, 2006 the Chevron atticle read “Rising Oil Prices Lift Chevron Profit to Quarterly Record.” Chevron reported record profits of $14.1 billion for 2005. The combined total of Chevron for 2004 and 2005 was a record $27.4 billion profit.

Isn’t it time someone questioned our priorities? Isn’t there something morally wrong when the average citizen struggles to make end meet in the face of rising oil and gas prices and the oil companies meanwhile are seeing record profits? Where is our government? Oh yeh they’re busy fighting a ‘war” in Iraq to make certain we can get more oil so prices don’t get out of control.

Remember this is the same Republican government of Bush that sat on the sidelines while Enron manipulated the makets to gouge electric consumers. It’s the free market system. It’s free enterprise they say. Right. That’s why Congress last November inserted more than $2 billion in additional tax breaks for oil and gas companies in the enegry legislation they passed.

Meanwhile we see cuts in college loans and heath care for the poor. Its a reverse Robin Hood mentality. Take from the poor and give to the rich. Congress should repeal the $2 billion giveway and impose an excess profits tax on the oil companies. Time for some compassion.