Happy earthday from the world's most profitable corporation. ExxonMobil invested less than three-hundredths of one percent of last year's record $36 billion in profits on direct research on alternative energy, according to recent Senate testimony and company documents analyzed by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR). The $10 million a year that Exxon puts into a 10-year project at Stanford University pales next to the more than $400 million granted in his final year to recently retired CEO Lee R. Raymond.
Exxon's penny-pinching on the research needed to ease U.S. petroleum dependence and lead oil companies into a less petroleum-dependent future comes on top of the FTCR's finding on April 17 that less than one-fourth of the recent spike in gasoline prices to $3 and above can be attributed to crude oil prices and ethanol costs, despite the claims of oil producers and refiners.
American oil companies, like Exxon and Chevron, will never spend resources developing cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy without the government forcing them to do so. Californians at least will have a chance to vote on a November ballot measure that takes back oil companies' windfall profits for a state fund that will provide practical incentives to make alternative fuel vehicles more available and affordable. Americans should realize by now that we cannot rely on oil companies to create cheaper and cleaner fuels. American oil companies like Exxon will never want us to use less oil.
Raymond, while defending his compensation in a speech Tuesday, scorned the idea that oil companies should invest in alternative energy sources. His final-year compensation was reported last week in the New York Times, which added up his salary, stock options, $98 million pension grant and $199 million in longer-term restricted stock grants.
In recently available transcripts of March 14th US Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on soaring energy prices, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) pressed current Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson to state Exxon's spending on alternatives to petroleum.
The only direct investment Tillerson could name was to the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project, which is not solely focused on alternative energy sources. Pressed by Schumer about the meager $10 millon a year, Tillerson responded: "We are investing in technology, and we are investing heavily in oil and natural gas, which is the business we are in." Even President Bush, a former Texas oilman, stated flatly in his January State of the Union Speech, "America is addicted to oil," and pledged support (if meager) of solar, wind and other technology development.
A 2004 Exxon "Report on Energy Trends, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Alternative Energy" also cites no other direct dollar investment, and dismisses alternative energies including solar, wind, biofuel and hydrogen as too inefficient and unprofitable in the near term to be of interest to Exxon. Solar is an "unattractive investment." Wind? "Politically unstable," because government subsidies are uncertain. Hydropower? "[No] competitive advantage for ExxonMobil." Even hydrogen fuels, the current darling of the U.S. automotive industry and the Bush administration, are dismissed because "significant commercialization... [is] not likely for some time."
This earth day let's remember Exxon has not interest in either saving individuals money or saving their planet.