ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, the world's two largest companies,
reported what
The New York Times called "lackluster" third-quarter earnings Thursday. Not because they were bad but because they weren't as gigantic as the third quarter of last year. ExxonMobil's earnings for the first nine months of 2012, however, were 10 percent above the same period last year. Exxon reported net earnings for the third quarter of this year at $9.57 billion; Shell reported $6.6 billion.
And both of them, along with the other three members of the Top Five oil companies, continue to vacuum up tax breaks, some of which date back to when Woodrow Wilson was president. The five, together, collect an estimated $2.4 billion annually in tax breaks. For Exxon, the breaks amounted to an
estimated $600 million; for Shell, $200 million. As Rebecca Leber and Jackie Weidman and Think Progress
write, the companies plowed some of the money they saved into lobbying Congress and contributing to political campaigns to ensure, among other things, that those tax breaks keep coming their way.
Exxon has spent $6.94 million lobbying Congress so far this year; Shell has spent $6.88 million. In addition, Exxon has contributed $3.0 million on campaign contributions in 2012, with 90 percent of it going to Republicans. Shell has contributed $339,000 to candidates, 52 percent going to Republicans.
In addition to helping them keep those tax breaks, the companies' contributions aid in getting politicians promoting the idea that we can continue to burn oil and gas as if there were no day of reckoning already peeking over the horizon. Exxon has funded phonies to challenge the very concept of global warming at the same time it has backed candidates and incumbents who, whatever their views on climate change, act to block policies that lead to any transition away from the burning of fossil fuels, much less the much-needed rapid transition in that direction.
Ironically, Shell this year began drilling in the Arctic Ocean, where the consequences of adding carbon from burning fossil fuels to our overburdened atmosphere has made it likely there will be an ice-free summer by 2020. The reduced volume and extent of Arctic ice is, scientists say, already having a serious impact on weather patterns that will only worsen. The warming that has led to less summer ice leads to even less ice that would normally keep things cooler by reflecting the sun's rays. The less reflection, the more heat the ocean absorbs, creating a cascade of changes across the planet that negatively affects sea life and atmospheric conditions.
That, not quarterly earnings, is the real bottom line.