Sticking it to Big Oil

First let me say thanks for the encouragement from Bill and Ray. Bill wrote a post for me that covers at least 10 important topics. Ray welcomed me back to my own 'blog. Both were just what I needed to see after such a long absence. Both made me smile. So thanks, sincerely, to both of you.

Now, the reason I'm procrastinating the work I planned for this evening is this:

I got an email from a former student that laid out the latest plan to stick it to the oil companies. You've probably seen it. It criticizes that last version of those emails wherein consumers were encouraged to not buy gas for a day, then goes on to explain how brilliant this new plan is. The plan is to not buy gas from the two (now one) largest companies, Exxon and Mobil. The theory is that if these two (now one) experience a drop in sales, they will be forced to lower their prices. The goal, according to the email, is to show the oil companies that the buyer controls the market.

It's a great plan, and as it claims, simple... except for a few minor details, namely:

1. The bulk of what we pay at the pump is state and federal tax. That's not gonna change no matter who we buy from.

2. The feds have allowed the major US producers to pump oil from federal lands (that means land we all own) without royalties for years now... why would they do that? That's not real likely to change no matter who we buy from.

3. Those royalties didn't keep up with market values even before they were waived completely. Why would anyone do that? That's not likely to change.

4. We've ignored Jimmy Carter's warning about reliance on oil for 30 years. What could we possibly do now that would really suggest we'll do anything different?

5. The names on the mail list through which I received this message tend to align with supply-side theorists. This plan goes against their core values. If they act on those values (and I'm not holding my breath) they won't do it anyway.

But the real reason I'm writing this particular installment instead of reading this week's 400 pages, cleaning up the toilet paper in my trees that my students (or colleagues?) so graciously donated this evening, grading papers, or sleeping is because I have an even simpler plan for sticking it to the oil companies:

Don't put people in office whose campaigns were financed by them, whose families are beholden to them, whose shares in the industry skyrocket and who sit back and watch as the nation is held captive by them.

What could be simpler than that? As they say up north, "if it looks like an oil covered duck, smells like an oil covered duck, sounds like an oil covered duck, broke into business like an oil covered duck, got bailed out by the oil producing duck whose assets remain protected as long as the country we invaded doesn't produce oil, then it must be an oil covered duck."

After putting up only the obligatory, meaningless written opposition to continuing the aforementioned royalty relief to oil companies (they're only getting away with a few billion here and there) the Bush administration then turned around and threatened to veto a budget that actually taxed oil companies to the tune of $5 billion. After all, why should oil companies, who have experienced record profit, have to pay taxes just because the bottom 90% of Americans do?

When it comes to big oil and the Bush administration, US representative George Miller said it best when he referred to oil as "the gift that keeps on giving." He even referred to this sweet little royalty/tax avoidance deal as a "train robbery."

A free market would create better alternatives to oil before we run out. Unfortunately, the market isn't free. It's tipped toward big oil. Until alternatives become a higher priority than oil profit, nothing will change until we run out and then it will be too late.