Oil Companies Balk At Following Obama's Green Lead

New York Times:

The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.

But the world's oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[BlackbirdHighway]

Tax carbon and offset it with generous tax cuts, mostly for the poor and middle class, to make it revenue neutral.

The policy changes that are needed are really pretty simple. It's the politics that are impossible.

[LDnearthesea]

That's what K Street is all about. Paying off the Senators and Congressmen from passing mandates that would push a Green Industry into existence at a far greater scale. We have to do it on our own individually. That's why I bought a Prius. I'm getting 43 MMPG. I'm not using gasoline at low speeds or when the battery is so charged up that it switches to electricity at even 70 mph for a short time. Friends of mine bought a house some six years back in a development where it was mandated that all the homes have solar. They get back some $4/month from PGand E. They SELL electricity back onto the grid!

[twiggy2]

boycott exxon - go to bp stations instead.

[BlackbirdHighway]

BP makes great greenwashing commercials, but they are cutting back on alternative investments and expanding production of very carbon intensive tar sands.

BP Solar in Frederick, MD just announced layoffs at a time when demand for solar is way, way up.

[skatscan]

Take the train, bike if you're close to work and stores.

[LDnearthesea]

Especially take the commuter trains to work if you have that available in your area. Unfortunately, in so-called liberal Santa Cruz County, we have yet to use our Prop 116 funds from 1990 to revitalize the passenger rail service that once existed here hooking up Santa Cruz to San Jose-SF to the north and Monterey/Salinas to the south.

[willfarnaby]

One could be knocked over with a feather if Exxon-Mobil et al. _)didn't_ try to hinder and sabotage transition to renewable / green energy materials and technologies, every step of the way.

That's why a strategic plank of this transition - that represents the only methodology that can save the entire ecosphere - should be to effectively castrate Exxon-Mobil and its ilk once and for all.

[skatscan]

They will spend more money to sabotage environmental responsibility than to go along with the changes necessary to keep viable. Look at the auto industry for that business model.

[LDnearthesea]

they have some of their enablers posting today. Like Tex Ag man. these guys just hate green tech. Claim jobs are going to be lost if the oligarchical control of Big Oil is stopped. yeah, right. Lots of new jobs were created out of the tech advancements in the late 19th century. the same will happen here if tax subsidies are given to green industry firms as they are to the dirty polluting oil firms!

[TxAggie]

I do not hate green technology. I support is while recognizing it limitations.

[Tom95134]

#1. Rescind all oil depletion allowances (which are nothing but big tax giveaways to the oil companies anyway).

#2. Change the tax structure on transportation fuels to provide a fund that the government can use to underwrite the research the oil companies will not do.

[LDnearthesea]

You are 100% right on with your comment. Big oil would hate that! Screw them! They've polluted and caused enougn lung cancers and asthmas long enough!

[TxAggie]

Tom-The Depletion Allowance has existed since 1926. It exists because resources decline from the moment they first produce, it is highly limited, only available to Amer. production, only to independent producers, only as to the 1st 1000 bbls per day, limited to net income of a property and to 65% of a producers income. "Big Oil" is not eligible for this tax treatment and it allows marginal low producers to remain economic- the loss of this deduction will cause thousands of wells to be plugged and the production lost forever. The loser, in addition to independent producer, is the American consumer. LDnearthesea you will have to "Screw" Big Oil some other way-they do not recieve this tax treatment.

[lisakaz2]

Well, duuuh! They're not farsighted thinkers, are they?

[LiberalBuzz]

WOW, Big Oil working hard NOT to develop any sort of alternative? WHO would have guessed it?

Because after all we can always squeeze oil out of shale, once the oil fields dry up in the future and even though oil then would be back in the hundreds of dollars per barrel, they will still manage to convince people gas cars are the best bet.

One can hope though that enough breakthroughs in electric and honest hybrids will break their backs.

[totalliberal]

You would never know it by there stupido commercials. I mean I love the one about Exxon inventing new batteries. LOL.

[sonofsamphm1c]

In point of fact, they have invented a new film for batteries that will make the hybrids and electric cars more efficient. They also have invented a higher mileage tire.

[sophistwatch]

Nationalize the oil companies, the banks and the insurance industry. They have all gotten too big to be left unmolested. I think the "people" should get wise and let the private sector grow the companies, and then nationalize everything. Screw the management, the shareholders and the CEO's. Let's just reverse the model. We are the ones with the real money and power anyway.

[TxAggie]

Just exactly how would that work? Do you suggest we follow the Hugo Chavez model where we just confiscate the property of the industries, declare all contracts void and the government takes over? Let's just make those industries one big post office, That sounds like a brilliant plan. Could you illuminate us further? BTW what industry are you associated with?

[skatscan]

Makes more sense than what we have now, or have you been in a coma the last few years?

[nwfurn]

When you own a government, why change?

[JimGroom]

Say it isn't so. The oil companies pursuing their own interest and telling the nation and the President to go to hell. What a surprise!

[alice09]

I'm shocked, shocked that the oil companies would resist this!
They've robbed us blind for years with billions in record profits and bonuses.
Why should they stop now? The planet be damned.

[hernan1333]

Anyone surprised? How quickly we forget...b­efore Wall Street and GM bailouts..­.the real corporate villains were these oil companies which r@ped the general public...c­an't change the spots on a leopard...

[Kanye East]

Green lead? HAHa!

like clean coal? riiiiiight.

the only feasible green power is nuclear. and that's basically the boogeyman (maybe because the French enjoy such a clean environment?) in this country, so i don't blame oil one bit.

[skatscan]

Nuclear green? you're kidding, right? Hope you like your house on top of that nuclear waste disposal site.

[CrzyRussell]

France doesn't have an issue with it.

[gcallaghan]

Well, if this is the case, how about banning their hypocritical enviro-friendly, progressiv­e-sounding scientist butterfly-­commercial­s?

[Marie62866]

Boycott Exxon, I have not used Exxon gas since the Valdez oil spill!

[poiuyty]

That will show them!!!