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AMERICA NEEDS REAL ENERGY SOLUTIONS Statement of Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club "America needs a safer, cleaner, and more secure energy future. Sadly, the energy bill that has emerged from the House and Senate conference committee fails on all counts. Instead of cutting America's oil dependence, boosting production of renewable energy, and lowering energy prices, this bill funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to polluting energy industries, and opens up our coastlines and wildlands to destructive oil and gas activities. "If Congress believes that this bill will lower gas prices or cut America's oil dependence, then the heat wave must be affecting their judgement. "Americans don't want to give free reign to the energy industry to spend their tax dollars and evade environmental and consumer protections. What they want is for Congress to address high energy costs by putting real solutions to work. The energy bill conference failed on multiple occasions to demonstrate that kind of leadership and as a result produced a bill that continues America's downward spiral of increasing oil dependence and rising prices. "It's unfortunate that, as Americans head to the beach for summer vacation, their representatives in Congress are considering opening up these very coasts to destructive oil and gas drilling. Approving an inventory of oil and gas reserves off America's coasts - a destructive process itself - is the first step toward dismantling decades of important coastal protections. "We urge members of Congress to do everything in their power to reject this destructive and backwards energy bill. It's time to start over with a smarter, cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy policy that puts innovation and technology to work." BY THE NUMBERS: ENERGY BILL, GAS PRICES, OIL COMPANY PROFIT RECORD PRICES $2.32: Average retail price for regular gasoline, up 39 cents over the last year. (Energy Information Administration (EIA) - www.eia.doe.gov) $2,873: Amount average family of four will spend on gasoline this year (Consumer Expenditure Survey from Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Energy Information Administration) $59.40: Price per barrel of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $18.30 from last year. (EIA & Bloomberg News - www.bloomberg.com/energy/) RECORD OIL DEPENDENCE 58%: Total U.S. dependence on net imports of foreign oil in 2005. Up from 44.5% in 1995. (EIA) 25%: The percentage of world oil production consumed by the United States (EIA) 3%: Percentage of world’s oil reserves located in the United States (EIA) 130,000: Additional barrels of oil consumed per day by the United States as a result of the energy bill extending loopholes for the auto industry that weaken federal fuel economy standards (Sec. 772) RECORD PROFITS $25.3 billion: Exxon Mobil's record-setting profits last year $3.4 billion: Fourth-quarter 2004 profit for Chevron-Texaco Corp, double the profit for the same quarter of the previous year. 218%: Exxon Mobil profit increase last year 145%: ConocoPhillips profit increase last year 51%: Shell profit increase last year 39%: ChevronTexaco profit increase last year 35%: BP profit increase last year RECORD TAXPAYER GIVEAWAYS $80 billion: Total money (tax breaks, direct spending, and authorizations) currently in the energy bill conference report to polluting energy industries. $66.3 billion in authorized spending, $11.68 billion in the tax package, and $2 billion in the Administration’s new nuclear risk insurance provisions. (Taxpayers for Common Sense - www.taxpayer.net) $3 billion: Cost to taxpayers to conduct an invasive oil and gas inventory along the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) even though these coastal areas are currently under a decades old drilling moratorium. $0: Total royalty payments from the oil and gas industry for deep water exploration on public lands (Sec. 345) and for oil drilled areas off Alaska’s coastline (Section 346) since the energy bill allows the industry to forgo royalty payments for these activities. RECORD CONTRIBUTIONS $52.3 million: Amount the oil and gas industry contributed to political candidates in 2004 (Center for Responsive Politics - www.opensecrets.org) $314.4 million: Amount the energy and natural resources industries spent on lobbying in 2003 and 2004. (Bloomberg News) # # # |
