[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7134-7136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                BIG OIL

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, as I stand here today, I am trying to 
figure out what our activities look like to the average American. They 
know we still have serious economic problems, though we are on a good 
track, and I think it is fair to say we are feeling a little bit 
better. But we were cautioned by President Obama the other day--those 
of us who had a chance to sit in a room with him--that while things are 
looking up, there is still a long way to go before our people are back 
to work and before they can afford the basics they need to take care of 
their families.
  While this is going on we have seen the most incredible courage, the 
most well-developed military plan imaginable, and the courage of our 
people who went in to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Thank goodness, nobody 
was hurt. It was a job well done, and the execution of a plan to bring 
to justice a man who helped kill almost 3,000 people at the World Trade 
Center and hundreds more in other attacks on American facilities--the 
Embassy in Tanzania, the Embassy in Kenya, the ship USS Cole--taking 
American lives. That is what they were determined to do.
  President Obama, after lots of previous administrations looking at 
things, trying to figure out what to do to stop these terrorist attacks 
on America, had the courage to make a decision that would have rested 
so heavily on anyone in that governing position. He decided to take the 
risk knowing that our people were so well trained, so well committed 
that the chance of their failure was very slim but very real.
  Good things have happened in America. Not only did this operation 
against bin Laden succeed in at least slowing down, if not eliminating, 
some of the terrorist threats in America, it also lifted the spirits of 
Americans across the country. We all felt better about it because we 
fought back against this terror threat.
  But now I look at where we are and listen to the debate and look at 
what the House of Representatives has done with their majority. At this 
point in time, when we are still reeling from shock, having had perhaps 
the greatest recession since the Great Depression of the twenties and 
thirties, instead of trying to figure out ways to solve the problems, 
our colleagues on the Republican side are trying to figure out ways to 
punish the public. They would say to them: OK, so you don't have enough 
jobs--we are going to try to reduce the possibility that we will have 
enough, to reduce the possibility that a person who can learn but is 
not well off can

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get an education. They want to take away those opportunities. They want 
to take away programs that have succeeded.
  We look back at our history in the last 90 years and ask: How did we 
get here? How did we get where we are? Mr. President, 400,000 Americans 
were killed in World War II. Then we saw growth in our country because 
of planning during President Roosevelt's days in the New Deal and the 
planning that President Johnson offered. We had Social Security 
developed, and then came Medicare, and then came Medicaid--programs 
that help people.
  On a personal basis, for me, those years I am talking about were 
particularly significant. I was born to a poor family. My father found 
it very difficult to earn a living, as did millions of other Americans. 
He worked in a silk factory in the city of Paterson, NJ. He was a man 
very conscious of his health. But the problem was that the environment 
was such that he contracted cancer when he was 42. He died when he was 
43 years old. His brother, working in the same type of facility, died 
when he was 52. My grandfather, who worked in the mills, died when he 
was 56 years old. That was life as I saw it. Things were bleak.
  My mother was a 37-year-old widow, and she had to carry on through my 
father's sickness. They bought a store to make ends meet. It did not do 
very well, but it kept her going for a while. When all was over and my 
father died, I was already enlisted in the Army. My mother had no 
resources left. She owed doctors, owed pharmacists, owed hospitals. 
Every penny she had was gone. I looked at this experience and thought: 
Something is not fair. But I was lucky. I was able to get my education 
under the GI bill, as did 8 million other people who wore the American 
uniform during those dark days.
  What happened? I got an education. I went to Columbia University. I 
was lucky. My tuition was paid for. I even got some money for books and 
some things I might have needed along the way were provided. It made a 
world of difference.
  I was able, with two friends, to start a business. The company is 
fairly well known. It is called ADP. The three of us started with 
nothing, the two brothers with whom I was associated. Their father also 
worked in the factories of Paterson. They were immigrants as were my 
grandparents. But along came this educational opportunity, and with 
that came an opportunity to start a business. Today that company, ADP, 
is one of the four most creditworthy companies in the United States. 
They are listed as a three-star company.
  ADP has 45,000 employees. They work in 21 countries. Most of the 
operation is in America but some of it is outside. It employs over 
45,000 employees and helps businesses by taking over a particular part 
of their recordkeeping needs. It helps make things operate better in 
these companies.
  Every month there is a labor statistic that is put out. It is done by 
ADP, my old company. The numbers are more reliable than those of the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics because the data is fresher. Every week, 
some 35 million people get their paychecks and that is where the data 
comes from. I left the company when I came here 29 years ago.
  From all these experiences, I saw an America that gave people like me 
a chance to do things and created what is called the greatest 
generation in the history of America. Now, Mr. President, I am 
beginning to see what I believe is a great generation developing--the 
number of people getting to work, fewer claims for unemployment 
insurance, more consumer spending, and retail sales are up. The signs 
are good.
  So when I look at what is going on in the House of Representatives, I 
see the stubbornness of our colleagues who refuse to step in and say: 
Look, we have to keep the government strong, we have to make sure we 
supply the kind of energy to the government that can move America 
along. Their response is cut, cut, cut, when all the critical social 
programs I mentioned were a needed expansion of government services. I 
am not one of those who want to cut valuable programs. I am one of 
those who want to reduce the deficit.
  Mr. President, when you look at a balance sheet, a financial 
statement, it carries two parts: One part is expenses--costs--and the 
other part is revenues. You can cut expenses all you want, but if the 
revenues don't improve, you go bankrupt. It is pretty simple. And that 
is where we are being asked to put our future on the line. Hold the 
debt ceiling as ransom? For what? For what? It will destroy the 
competence in America. It will destroy our ability to be the country we 
are, the country that still leads the world despite competition.
  When I left home this morning, I passed an Exxon station that is 
fairly near my home. There was a sign on the pump that gave the price 
of their gas--$4.79 a gallon. For people who have any distance to 
travel, this is painful. This is painful. This is part of the income 
they can use for basic things that are needed.
  But what do we see? We see major gasoline companies, and we ask 
ourselves: Whose side are our colleagues on? It appears they are on the 
side of the gasoline companies. I think we ought to be more 
conscientious about this and make sure the public understands we are 
there for them, for the majority of people in this country who are sick 
and tired of seeing the price-gouging we have seen from the gasoline 
companies.
  There was a Finance Committee hearing today, and I watched and heard 
the heads of these companies--the five big oil companies--say what they 
are worried about. Well, they are worried about the prospect of losing 
$4 billion a year they get in subsidies. And there was even kind of a 
caustic comment that it might be un-American to take away the subsidies 
these people get. Mr. President, $4 billion a year in subsidies.
  When you look at what is going on with these companies, you see 
astounding results. Make no mistake, greed is fueling their appetite, 
and the bigger it gets, the more they want.
  During the years of World War II, there was an excess profits tax 
that said companies shouldn't be feeding off of the opportunity the war 
presented and taking advantage of the public. Well, we are at war, in 
case people have forgotten about it. Afghanistan is a real war. We 
still have the remnants of the difficulties in Iraq, we have piracy on 
the seas, and we have all kinds of things we have to keep fighting for. 
So there ought to be some recompense for our country for the 
opportunity they have to make this kind of money.
  These are their earnings during the first 3 months of 2011, which is 
still part of the recession time: Exxon, their end-of-quarter profits 
were over $10 billion. Shell, almost $9 billion. BP, $7.1 billion--that 
is after their foul mistake in the Gulf of Mexico that cost plenty of 
money. They still made that kind of money. And Chevron made $6.2 
billion. Little ConocoPhillips only made $3 billion in that quarter.
  When you think about it, the irony is how well BP has done--a company 
that spewed 200 million gallons of oil into the ocean last year. Why is 
our government shoving billions of dollars into the pockets of their 
executives, their lawyers? Why don't we use the money to invest in a 
stronger America and pay down our debt? I would like to see us doing 
that.
  Big Oil's greed is helping to inflate our deficit. Every day, 
Americans are footing the bill. You would think our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle would want to put a stop to this madness, to 
step up for the average person. Well, so far we are not doing what I 
would like to see being done for the public, for the average citizen. 
Big Oil is doing everything in its power to protect its subsidies, and 
the Republicans are doing everything in their power to help them. The 
Republicans say that eliminating these wasteful subsidies will raise 
gas prices. That is wrong. That is plain wrong.
  Look at the compensation of the CEOs here. Now, they are not selling 
pretzels or making potato chips; they are dealing with a commodity that 
is essential to the functioning of our society, of mankind. The CEO at 
Exxon got $29 million; ConocoPhillips, $18 million; Chevron, $16 
million. These are all

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in 2010, for the year just recently concluded. I want to make certain 
people understand that companies paying their fair share in taxes isn't 
going to hurt the industry. It just means Big Oil executives may have 
to make do with a smaller swimming pool or maybe smaller yacht, but no 
real pain or punishment there.
  The fact is, the Big Oil CEOs aren't feeling this recession. But 
instead of making our government more fiscally responsible by ending 
the giveaways to Big Oil, the Republicans have another idea: They want 
to cut the deficit by ending Medicare as we know it. That won't save us 
any money in the long term. It will simply increase the expenditures, 
as many are forced to pay more out of their own pockets for their 
health. Seniors are struggling. The big oil companies aren't.
  I wish the other side would listen a little more closely to the 
wishes of the American people. Almost three-quarters of Americans say 
we should stop giving billions in tax breaks to the big oil companies 
each year. The American people know these subsidies are unnecessary, 
ineffective, and immoral. And it is not as if the oil industry is 
taking its annual $4 billion windfall and investing it in our country's 
future. No. In addition to going into the paychecks of the Big Oil 
executives, this money is being used to line the pockets of the 
industry's lawyers and lobbyists who are seen frequently and obviously 
around here.
  I have seen this time and time again during my career in the Senate. 
I was the first Senator on the scene at the Exxon Valdez when it rammed 
into the Alaskan shoreline in 1989. Instead of being forthcoming and 
doing what they should have done, Exxon fought over every penny with 
the communities in Alaska--the families and the fishermen whose lives 
it destroyed. Instead of stepping up to pay the court-awarded damages--
$5 billion--Exxon said: To heck with that verdict. We will fight it. We 
will fight it all the way. And they did, for years. They knocked down 
the amount from $5 billion in punitive damages to $500 million. I 
guarantee you they paid a lot of money to the lawyers and lobbyists, 
but they would rather give it to them than to the American people. That 
is what that shows. In the end, it took more than 20 years for Exxon to 
pay for what it had done. Some victims died while waiting for the 
company to make things right.
  So we should not be giving Big Oil $4 billion in tax breaks each 
year. Their profits, which last year exceeded $100 billion, are larger 
than lots of countries. We should be investing in ways to break our 
dangerous addiction to oil. We should be investing in innovative 
approaches to moving people and goods, including increasing funds for 
transit, creating a world-class high-speed rail network, and expanding 
the number of electric cars on our roads. We should also boost our 
country's promising clean energy industry, making sure we lead the 
world in the export of environmental products that are proudly stamped 
with the ``Made in the USA'' label.
  Don't be fooled--drilling will not, in the final analysis, get us out 
of our energy problems. We use almost a quarter of the world's oil, but 
we sit on less than 3 percent of the world's reserve. So drilling is 
going to just quickly bring the end of our ability to produce oil. That 
will be the conclusion. According to the U.S. Energy Information 
Administration, even if we open every offshore drilling area in the 
continental United States, the average price of gasoline would drop by 
just 3 cents a gallon by the year 2030. Here, we see it: The benefit of 
increased drilling will save us 3 cents a gallon in two decades. That 
is not very promising for people who have to rely on the automobile for 
all kinds of things in their lives.
  Continuing to subsidize oil companies only increases our dependence 
on dirty fuels. And even as our children pay a heavy price--with asthma 
victims and other respiratory problems--it keeps us on a dead-end road 
to sky-high energy bills, more oil spills like the one we saw in the 
gulf, and dangerous pollution levels. Investing in clean alternatives 
to oil, cars that go further on a gallon of gas, and smart 
transportation, such as mass transit, are the only realistic solutions 
to our energy challenges.
  Beyond clean energy investments, we should take the $4 billion we 
give away to Big Oil each year and use that money to pay down our 
deficit. It is pretty clear that we cannot restore fiscal sanity to our 
government unless we start paying more attention to the revenue column 
in our ledger.
  I was a CEO for many years. I know you cannot run a company or a 
country without a strong revenue flow. Ending the government's wasteful 
oil industry subsidies will not be enough to erase our deficit, but it 
is a good place to start.
  I call on my colleagues, have a citizen's heart. Look at this as you 
would any other obligation you have in your life. Make sure our country 
is strong and that our middle-class and our modest earners can look 
ahead for a decent life for themselves, educating their children and 
protecting their parents with proper health care. Get Big Oil off the 
welfare rolls. Let's end the industry's tax breaks and end our 
country's addiction to oil and other dirty fuels.
  Let's invest in clean energy and smart transportation--and cut the 
windfalls for the oil industry lobbyists and lawyers. I want to make 
sure--and I am sure all of us do, down deep--our grandchildren and 
children inherit a country that is fiscally sound and morally 
responsible.
  I yield the floor.

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