The oil companies want ACCESS ...ANWR, Oil Shale in the west, off the Florida Coast, ALL these locations are FULL OF JOBS . ..full of opportunities to find Oil and drive up the Supply, and drive Down the Price.

Chavez ain't got no stinking Environmental concerns slowing him down.  Same with China. . . .what pollution ?  

Hmmm, I wonder if Congress is going to do anything about those universities and their massive tax breaks and windfall profits. Little Johnny needs to be educated, ya know.

D

Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.

Never mind that their profits as a percent of revenue is average.  Never mind that demand drives price.  Let congress raise their taxes, who do you think will pay for the tax increase?  Oh yeah, the consumer. $3.00 gas will sound reasonable.

Oil prices have doubled in 14 months. The unemployment rate is rising. The housing market is in trouble (for the fools that bought more than they can pay for). The stock market is dropping. Food prices have steadly increased the past 14 months. All of this in the past 14 months. Something keeps popping up as 14 months. Yep, it was 14 months ago that the demcrats took control of congress and started ranting about massive increased taxes. Mouthing off has had it's effect, the lame stream media knows it but won't print the truth. 

Old, Retired and glad of it.

Here is the attack plan of the fabian socialists of the democrat party:

Step 1:  Regulate industries into dysfunctionality

Step 2:  Argue that said dysfunctionality  is because captialism doesn't work.

Step 3:  Argue that the sollution is complete control (or at least even more regulation) over those industries.

30+ years of anti-energy policies is going to have consequences like this.  It is not a shocker that the supply is not meeting the demand.  If I was an oil exec going in front of congress I would let them have it.  I'd say, "how dare you parade us here like we're to blame!  Your anti-energy policies have artificially choked off the supply which has resulted in higher energy prices.  It forces us to turn large profits to afford the inflated costs of oil exploration since you will not let us do it in our own country!  The truth is that you politicians actually WANT higher energy prices but then want to make us the scape-goat."

Nobody has this kind of sense any more, so get used to the high prices.  I doubt we will ever see them get any lower than this.

The headlines ought to read, "Congress Thanks Energy Industry CEOs for a Windfall of Taxes for All Levels of Governmnet"

Subheadline, "With fists full of tax dollars flowing into governmnet coffers, even bambi's rediculous spendthrift ideas just might be able to be funded!" 

If you don't believe me, let's just take one of the oil companies, Exxon.  In 2007, it made 359 billion.  It paid out in taxes, before stockholders got a dime, $30 billion.  But, it gets better.  Exxon employs 80 thousand people.  Exxon pays well.  So, let's say that each of these employee earned 60k in 2007.  On average, they would have paid about 15% in federal taxes or about a 500 million dollars.  Exxon sold about 50 billion gallons of gasoline in the US.  The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents.  So, service stations that sold Exxon gasoline paid about $9 billion in taxes.  And, that's just to the federal government.  The states, on average, charge another 40 cents per gallon.

So, Exxon paid over $40 billion in taxes in 2007.

Oops!!!  Did I say Exxon paid these taxes?  That's a lie.  Corporations DO NOT TAXES.  You do, the shareholder!

And every dime of expenses, including taxes were figured into the cost for Exxon's products.  So, you, meaning us - US citizens, paid every dime of the above taxes. 

So, what to do?

Hey, Congress should have had us up on the "Hill" to thank us.

Do you get a thank you from Congress today? 

Want to know what the crime here is? It's that Exxon has paid 19 billion dollars MORE in taxes over the past 5 years than they have made in profit.

Some of these execs need to grow a pair too. When the congress folks demanded that they invest more money in alternativc crap,errrr, energy, I would have told them if they wanted a solar or a wind company, then they need to start their own. We're in the oil business, not the solar-wind-waste-time-money-and-resources business.

I'd also tell them to take their little tax break and shove it. I mean, what, it's 18 billion divided between 5-6 companies? I think they can manage without it, plus then they can't keep holding it over their heads every 6 months during these show hearings. I mean, how pathetic is to whine over this tiny amount? The government has done quite well for themselves with this little investment. Heck, over the past 5 years, they've done better than Exxon. I'd say it's a pretty sweet deal to be able to make so much money while producing nothing, and doing nothing other than confiscating the wealth of others.

Lastly, I would put it out there that we(the company) is seriously looking into locating somewhere else, maybe Dubai. And I hope they actually do.

OK, let me get this straight, the Congress is going to "punish" the oil companies by raising their taxes (or lowering their tax credits). This will have the following affects: 1. lower exploration 2. lower production 3. lower profits which will result in #4. 4. higher prices. As much as the Congress would like to, they can't repeal the law of supply and demand.

So tell me how this punishes the oil companies. Looks like the consumer is punished more.