All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil Industry, Oil industry subsidies, Tax credits, Trump, Valero Energy Corporation

INSIDE THE TAX BILL’S $25 BILLION OIL COMPANY BONANZA

Repost from Pacific Standard
[Editor: Valero Energy’s windfall of DIRECT ONE-TIME 2017 TAX SAVINGS from the Trump tax law was $1.9 BILLION, according to Valero’s 4th quarter 2017 SEC filing .  See chart below. See also Valero’s Feb 2018 press release and Valero’s detailed SEC 2017 Year End Fiscal Report.  – RS]

A Pacific Standard analysis shows the oil and gas industry is among the tax bill’s greatest financial beneficiaries.

By Antonia Juhasz, Mar 27, 2018
President Donald Trump pitches his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the Andeavor oil refinery in North Dakota in September of 2017.
President Donald Trump pitches his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the Andeavor oil refinery in North Dakota on September 6th, 2017. (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)

Last month, during a retreat in West Virginia, congressional Republicans set out their 2018 party goals. Their primary objective is to hold onto their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the key mechanism for doing so is to ride the coattails of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. “The tax bill is part of a bigger theme that we’re going to call The Great American comeback,” said Representative Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “If we stay focused on selling the tax reform package, I think we’re going to hold the House and things are going to be OK for us.”

More than 50 percent of the tax bill’s benefits will go to the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, and more than 25 percent to the wealthiest 1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. As Businessweek put it, “President Donald Trump and Republicans sold their $1.5 trillion tax cut as a boon for workers, but it’s becoming clear just two months after the bill passed that the truly big winners will be corporations and their shareholders.”

Pacific Standard‘s original analysis finds that it is the oil and gas industry, including companies that backed the presidency of Trump and whose former executives and current boosters now populate it, that are among the tax bill’s largest and most long-lasting financial beneficiaries.

Just 17 American oil and gas companies reported a combined total of $25 billion in direct one-time benefits from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Many of the companies will also receive millions of dollars in income tax refunds this year. Looking forward, the Tax Act then reduces all corporate annual tax bills by a minimum of 40 percent every year in perpetuity, while adding new benefits that function as government subsidies for the oil and gas industry. The companies’ activities in the United States are made less expensive, thereby encouraging a further expansion of oil and gas operations.

Pacific Standard reviewed the Annual 10K and Fourth Quarter Reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for 2017 by 17 U.S. oil companies, looking at the largest companies in production, refining, and pipelines that also clearly specified the impacts of the Tax Act in their results. Private companies, such as Koch Industries, which undoubtedly benefit from the legislation, could not be included because they are not required to make these financial reports publicly available.

$25 BILLION IN OIL COMPANY TAX SAVINGS

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 6.19.30 PM
(Chart: Antonia Juhasz/Pacific Standard)  …CLICK TO ENLARGE

Continue reading INSIDE THE TAX BILL’S $25 BILLION OIL COMPANY BONANZA →

Climate action, Climate activists, Climate Change, Global warming, Juliana v. the United States, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Legal action

These Teens Just Won a Victory Over the Trump Administration in Court

Repost from Mother Jones
[Editor: For more on this story, see Our Children’s Trust, and Climate Liability News.  – RS]

The plaintiffs are arguing that the government’s actions have caused climate change which violates their constitutional rights.

By Amy Thomson, Apr.  13, 2018 3:44 PM
Eighteen of the 21 kids and young adults suing Trump, their lawyers, and supporters pose for a photo outside the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. | Amy Thomson

“We the people are ready to leave,” sang a small choir of climate activists in downtown San Francisco, “’cause the White House makin’ it hard to breathe.” 

That was the rallying cry in support of the 21 plaintiffs, ages 22 and younger, who are suing the federal government for causing climate change damages and thereby violating their constitutional rights. Last year, on December 11, a crowd of around 100 people gathered across the street from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco where oral arguments were being heard as the government defendants tried to argue the case should not go to trial.

But the court ruled in favor of the young plaintiffs last month, and on Thursday, a US magistrate judge set a trial date for October 29 in Eugene, Ore.   Continue reading These Teens Just Won a Victory Over the Trump Administration in Court →

Climate Change, Climate change denial, Global warming, Greenhouse gas emissions, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil industry knew, Shell Oil

Here is what #Shell Knew about Climate Change in the 1980s

Repost from DeSmogBlog
[Editor: Here’s the link to the original 1988 Shell internal document.  ALSO, see previous stories 2015-2016.  – RS]

Here is what #Shell Knew about Climate Change in the 1980s

By Mat Hope • Wednesday, April 4, 2018 – 23:15
Cover pages of a Shell internal document

Shell knew climate change was going to be big, was going to be bad, and that its products were responsible for global warming all the way back in the 1980s, a tranche of new documents reveal.

Documents unearthed by Jelmer Mommers of De Correspondent, published today on Climate Files, a project of the Climate Investigations Center, show intense interest in climate change internally at Shell.

The documents date back to 1988, meaning Shell was doing climate change research before the UN’s scientific authority on the issue, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was established.

Here’s a quick run through of a 1988 document entitled, ‘The Greenhouse Effect’. Continue reading Here is what #Shell Knew about Climate Change in the 1980s →

Gun control, National Rifle Association, noNRAmoney.ORG

Robert Reich: 5 POINTS TO COUNTER THE NRA

Repost from robertreich.org

5 REASONS THE NRA IS WRONG

5 REASONS THE NRA IS WRONG

The next time you hear someone repeating pro-gun NRA propaganda, respond with these five points:

1. Gun laws save lives. Consider the federal assault weapons ban. After it became law in 1994, gun massacres – defined as instances of gun violence in which six or more people were shot and killed – fell by 37 percent. The number of people dying from mass shootings fell by 43 percent. But when Republicans in Congress let the ban lapse in 2004, gun massacres more than doubled.

2. The Second Amendment was never intended to permit mass slaughter. When the Constitution was written more than 200 years ago, the framers’ goal was permit a “well-regulated militia,” not to enable Americans to terrorize their communities.

3. More guns have not, and will not, make us safer.More than 30 studies show that guns are linked to an increased risk for violence and homicide. In 1996, Australia initiated a mandatory buyback program to reduce `the number of guns in private ownership. Their firearm homicide rate fell 42 percent in the seven years that followed.

4. The vast majority of Americans want stronger gun safety laws. According to Gallup, 96 percent of Americans support universal background checks, 75 percent support a 30-day waiting period for all gun sales, and 70 percent favor requiring all privately owned guns to be registered with the police. Even the vast majority of gun owners are in favor of common-sense gun safety laws.

5. The National Rifle Association is a special interest group with a stranglehold on the Republican Party. In 2016, the group spent a record $55 million on elections. Their real goal is to protect a few big gun manufacturers who want to enlarge their profits.

America is better than the NRA. America is the young people from Parkland, Florida, who are telling legislators to act like adults. It’s time all of us listen.