We were generous to oil companies when handing out COVID relief. Donald Trump and industry allies in Congress saw an industry in great need:
“We will never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down. I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan which will make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future!” Trump said on Twitter.
www.reuters.com/...
We gave the industry significant protection:
The Main Street Lending Program handed out big loans to the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel companies on main street who knew?
The fossil fuel industry received more than $2.2 billion in MSLP loans, and boasted some of the largest individual loans issued through the program.
www.citizen.org/...
We needed to allow them to reduce their taxes as well. Intense fossil fuel industry lobbying allowed them to include taxes paid before the pandemic as part of the write-off!
Several provisions in the 2020 CARES Act allowed fossil fuel companies to report millions in tax refunds and write-offs during the pandemic. As of November 2020, payroll tax deferrals, expanded write-offs for debt interest payments, and accelerated refunds allowed oil and gas companies to receive more than $5.5 billion in tax benefits.
www.citizen.org/...
The public dollars Marathon took were made possible by Congress’ changes to federal tax law, which allowed companies to deduct previous years’ financial losses from taxes that the company already paid. That means that the more Marathon lost in 2020 – as well as in losses unrelated to the pandemic in 2019 and 2018 – the more they were refunded from previous years’ tax payments.
lailluminator.com/...
But most important, was allowing companies to keep people employed during the pandemic hardship for business.
The Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was designed to help small businesses keep workers employed during the pandemic. Over 8 million loans have been distributed through the program, at least 25,931 of which went to oil and gas companies. According to Public Citizen’s analysis, at least $4.3 billion in PPP loans went to oil and gas companies.
www.citizen.org/...
Doing what Trump wanted, saving those great oil industry jobs long into the future!
- Payrolls were cut by a net 58,030 jobs at the 74 of these companies that reported employee headcounts for the end of 2019 and 2020
- The 62 companies that laid off workers collected $7.65 billion through the tax bailout — about $131,000 for each of the 58,488 people they left jobless.
- Five companies filed for bankruptcy protection after receiving $308.7 million in tax bailouts and laying off a total of 5,683 workers.
bailoutwatch.org/...
The future comes quickly.
Now I know Manchin and Conservatives tell us the money given out is what causes inflation, but each of those job losses represented a loss in capacity for the oil industry. Since many of those job losses were at oil refineries and we are currently at maximum capacity at the refinery we have left, the supply bottleneck is related to those job losses. Taking the no-strings attached money while laying off workers and closing production facilities. (Funny these same people want all kinds of strings attached to assistance for the average American if they are willing to give any at all)
So the industry decided to take the money and run, and their reward is record profits while consumers face pain at the pump.
(Please Democrats have an AD with Republicans and Oil industry executives committing armed robbery at gas stations.)
Fossil Fuel industry reductions after receiving relief funds are not everything that reduced refinery capacity.
Lawmakers and regulators, including the PUC and the industry-friendly Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, have repeatedly ignored, dismissed or watered down efforts to address weaknesses in the state’s sprawling electric grid, which is isolated from the rest of the country.
www.texastribune.org/…
Basically, Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with — you guessed it — the feds.
www.texastribune.org/...
Thanks to the Republican refusal to have responsible regulation Texas suffered a big power outage. Refineries take damage from power loss, many take weeks to come back online, and even then new damage is discovered long after the incident. A number of the refineries have still not fully recovered further reducing capacity. So again we have conservatives causing high gas prices.
We could have avoided this crisis with the adoption of Green Energy and faster replacement of fossil fuel vehicles with electric or at least hybrid, we had multiple opportunities for conversion. But we always are blocked by people that want us to be beholden to fossil fuel industry profits.
Sometimes you just have to ask why?
Still Postmaster General and Chief Executive officer Louis DeJoy:
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defended the Postal Service's plan to replace the vast majority of its aging vehicle fleet with gas-powered trucks -- rather than electric vehicles -- saying on Tuesday that USPS needs to balance its commitment to an electric fleet with "our dire financial condition."
An electric fleet would reduce cost now and in the future.
Reduce nation demand for gasoline, so help with gas prices.
Many instances exist where Conservatives keep us reliant on the oil industry. Give the oil industry unearned benefits. While sabotaging the supply of gasoline to keep industry profits up. Shortages create profits, right now those profits help hurt the only political party willing to do anything to reduce our reliance on their product. This is Conservative-created inflation, stop letting them lie about it.