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Solution to Big Oil’s Skyrocketing Profits: Windfall Profits Tax, End Subsidies

 April 28, 2011  

Solution to Big Oil’s Skyrocketing Profits: Windfall Profits Tax, End Subsidies

Statement by Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen

ExxonMobil and Shell today announced skyrocketing profits, as did BP yesterday, and as Chevron will tomorrow. The reason is simple: Prices at the gas pump are jumping, even though the cost of drilling hasn’t changed for the giant integrated firms. Big Oil is able to pocket the difference – at the direct expense of consumers.

Beneficiaries of such a windfall certainly should not be the recipients of billions in government subsidies.

Even more fundamentally, there is an obvious response to the windfall profits of the oil companies: a windfall profits tax. The government should tax the windfall profits of the oil giants, and invest the money in renewable energy programs, so that we reduce our dependence on oil and dirty energy.

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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.