Flaylo
Handsome Devil
Props aplenty in Senate show on big oil tax breaks - Yahoo! News
If they didn't need them why now? Greed!!!!
The hearing didn't get Congress any closer to doing that. But it did provide Senate Democrats a televised chance to challenge the nation's five largest oil companies to defend their generous tax breaks amid huge profits. At issue, Democrats said, was a bill by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to repeal the tax breaks granted to the five companies testifying.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon played a video of a 2005 congressional hearing in which oil company executives said they didn't need generous tax breaks because oil was then selling at $55 a barrel. As the hearing commenced, the price per barrel hovered just below $100.
"You all said you didn't need them in 2005," Wyden said. "You seem to be telling a different story today."
Chevron Corp. chairman and CEO John Watson said the companies don't want special tax benefits just the benefits that other industries get.
ConocoPhillips chairman Jim Mulva said a tax increase on oil companies would cost jobs, discourage investment and lead to even higher gas prices. But several of his fellow CEOs weren't as willing to make a direct link between eliminating the tax breaks and higher fuel costs.
"It's hard to make definitive statements around prices because part of the conversation today was around all of the elements that go into the volatility of prices," Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., said after the hearing. "There's so many factors you can't say a definitive impact."
If they didn't need them why now? Greed!!!!