Only 10 days after Congressman Maurice Hinchey introduced the End Oil Aid Bill in the U.S. Congress, more than 150 organizations from 50 countries have written to House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, recognizing her clean energy efforts and calling on her to lend support to eliminate international ‘oil aid’. The letter (Acrobat pdf) cites over $20 … Read More
oil subsidies
Ecuador Throws Out World Bank Rep Over Oil Aid:
Direct World Bank financing for oil companies is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but the Bank’s behind the scenes work to make the world safe for Big Oil is priceless. While Bank support for mega-projects involving companies like Exxon and BP may get most of the attention, the Bank’s biggest impact on … Read More
Democratic Senators Propose Oil Windfall Tax
A group of eight “freshman” Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies as well as revoking some government subsidies. The legislation, proposed by Senator Robert Casey, D-Pa., would impose a 50 percent tax on profits after oil prices rise above $50 a barrel. It also repeals tax … Read More
Germans Unite Against Oil Aid!
A group of 40 German NGOs called on G8 Environment Ministers today to phase out fossil fuel subsidies at home and use their influence to steer the World Bank away from fossil fuels and towards a new energy revolution. A long list of German organizations, including the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, Oxfam … Read More
Development Banks’ Inconvenient Truth
Multilateral development banks concluded a two day conference in London yesterday on “Financing Clean Energy”. Non-governmental organizations were generally shut out of the meeting, restricted to a handful of participants, but a long list of oil and energy companies were in attendance and they were ready to discuss just about anything other than phasing out … Read More
Climate Coalition Calls on G8 to End Oil Aid
The Climate Action Network (CAN), a worldwide network of over 365 Non-Governmental Organizations working together to fight climate change, called on the G8 today to “start a complete phase out of public financing for fossil fuel operations and oil aid and ensure that International Financial Institutions, such as the World Bank, become leaders in investing … Read More
Despite the Democrats, Big Oil Subsidies Continue
Well the public perception is that it is all change at Congress. With the Democrats in power, one of their promises is to get rid of nasty subsidies to the oil industry. Well apparently not. Great article by Laura MacCleery, who is the director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, on TomPaine. According to MacCleery: … Read More
The Billion Dollar Plunder
A top Interior Department official was told nearly three years ago about a legal blunder that allowed oil companies to avoid billions of dollars in payments for oil and gas pumped from publicly owned waters in the US. According to the New York Times a report by the department’s chief independent investigator, suggests that Interior … Read More
Interior Dept. Cover-Up of lease scandal
Apparently there are no lengths to which Bush Administration officials will not go in defense of Big Oil. According to Congressional Quarterly, the Interior Department’s Inspector General will shortly issue a report revealing that Department officials, after learning in 2000 of mistakes in leases that could cost the American people $10 billion, proceeded to cover … Read More
Blowing the Whistle on Big Oil
Great article in the New York Times about the malaise of Washington’s over sight of the oil industry and how it has taken a retired federal auditor to expose the comfy collusion between the industry and its regulators. For years Bobby Maxwell scrutinized the books of major oil producers that pumped billions of dollars worth … Read More