Last week the "Big Five" oil companies reported what could only be called healthy profits, what averages out to be a 35.6% increase in profits over the first quarter of last year. One company, ExxonMobil, reported a 69.8% increase in profits over last year in this quarter.
The Checks and Balances Project took a look at those profits, and just what the companies are spending to keep those profits high, summed up pretty well here:
According to Public Campaign, the Political Action Committees for BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil donated $285,500 to elected officials and political parties in the first quarter of 2011.
"These profit reports show Big Oil is making big bucks from high gas prices at the pump," said Checks and Balances Deputy Director Matt Garrington. "Big Oil spent $63 million lobbying Congress and $2 million in campaign contributions last year so politicians would hand out $4 billion every year in taxpayer-funded subsidies."
Public pressure is starting to sway GOP members of Congress. Speaker John Boehner, Denny Rehberg, Sam Graves, Mick Mulvaney, and Paul Ryan are all on record, stating the need to end oil and gas subsidies.
On the other hand, oil and gas money recipients, including Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA-04) and Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO-05), recently voted against ending "royalty relief" for offshore drilling companies. Hastings and Lamborn are also leading the charge to open up even more Western lands drilling despite the fact that Big Oil and Gas has failed to develop 57 percent of public lands leased for drilling.
Those Republicans know which side their bread is buttered on, but as the political oil subsidy fight heats up—along with increasing anger over the Republican budget plan and it's big tax breaks for the rich and for corporations—voters might actually be in a mood to just remove the bread from that scenario.