Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Last year, ExxonMobil made $41 billion in profits. Together, the top five oil companies made a combined $137 billion in profits. You would think that every time these large oil companies extract oil from public lands offshore in the Gulf of Mexico that they would be required to pay the American people a fee, a royalty to do so, since the lands are owned by the people of the United States. Well, you would be wrong. As a result of an oil company court challenge to a 1995 law, oil companies are not paying any royalties to the American people on leases issued between 1996 and 2000 on public lands of our country. The Republicans want to drill into the pensions of Federal workers to fund our highways. They want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America's Serengeti, and off our beaches in California and Florida and New Jersey to fund this transportation bill. But if we are looking for revenue to fund our road projects, we should just start by ending this free ride Big Oil is getting on public land. In recent years, the amount of free oil these companies have been pumping has gone through the roof as more of these free drilling leases have gone into production. In fact, right now more than 25 percent of all oil produced offshore on Federal lands is produced royalty free, tax free. They don't have to pay any taxes whatsoever. Let me say that again.…”