oil profits

Sometimes things just come together and several individual items that don't quite add up to a story unite into a really good one.

This last week, a discussion with someone who grew up in Iowa, this month's issue of Catalyst, the newsletter of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a press release from Nancy Pelosi all synergized to remind me that Democrats have been pushing for a real, American, practical energy policy since the Carter administration and all the Republicans advocate for are oil, oil, oil.

On October 26th, in response to the release of record profits by the bloated oil company Exxon/Mobil, Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement:

"Today’s record oil company profits remind Americans that Republicans’ energy policies, which were written in secret by the Cheney Task Force and the energy industry, are an abject failure for the American people. Their six-year record of heaping subsidies on oil companies reaping record profits while leaving consumers to pay the bill, has brought us record dependence on foreign oil.

“Under President Bush and the Republican Congress gas prices are 75 percent higher than in 2000, consumers will pay an average $2,300 more in energy costs than they did in 2000, and we are sending nearly $800 million a day to the Middle East and other oil producing countries.”