Thirty years ago, Herb Bacon was working in the old U.S. Bank of Grand Junction when a man operating Exxon’s local oil shale project walked into the lobby with his usual pep in his step. Little did either man know it then, but two days later–on what is now known as “Black Sunday”–Exxon pulled the plug.
BOULDER — Pursuing oil shale production in the face of increasing water demands and climate change concerns is ill-advised, a new report from an environmental group here warns.
Chevron is giving up its experimental oil shale lease in Western Colorado. The company is one of only three companies holding a federal lease to research oil shale development in Colorado but officials say they would rather pursue other projects.
A nonpartisan watchdog group is blowing the whistle on U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton and others in Congress who consistently advocate for tax breaks, subsidies and other giveaways to oil and gas companies.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is gunning for Colorado Freshman Representative Cory Gardner with a bold gas-station advertising campaign that highlights his votes in support of oil industry tax breaks and deregulation, on one side, and his votes to prune Medicare, on the other. Ads will appear atop gas pumps in the Fourth District, capturing constituents as they watch their price-of-purchase climb. The ad text underlines the contrast between individual taxpayers sweating out the economy and the mega-profiting non-tax-paying corporations like Chevron and Exxon that are hiking gas prices in a recession without fear of political response.
Five top U.S. corporations racked up millions in profits last year and paid no federal taxes. They spent money instead on political campaigns and it was money well spent. Over the last decade, Bank of America, Boeing, Chevron, ExxonMobil and General Electric handed out $78.7 million to state political campaigns and $45.3 million to federal campaigns, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Institute for Money in State Politics. In return, the corporations in 2009 won $3.7 billion in tax breaks overall and paid $0 in federal taxes. They enjoyed a combined profit of $77.16 billion in 2010.
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson today admitted the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, comes with certain risks, telling reporters at the company’s annual meeting that the debate still needs to stay fact-based. “We know there are risks,” Tillerson said, according to Reuters. “We’re not trying to characterize this as an activity that does not have risks.”
Opponents of ending tax breaks for big oil companies argue that closing tax loopholes will result in higher prices at the pump, but a report from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service finds that ending the tax breaks is unlikely to cause a rise in prices.
The nonprofit Checks and Balances Project today released an analysis of the skyrocketing profits of the nation’s top five oil and gas companies in the wake of near-record gas prices and compared those profits to lobbying expenditures and political…
The worsening Deepwater Horizon oil spill may be grabbing all the headlines lately, but several much smaller incidents in Colorado and neighboring states are quietly highlighting the need for increased onshore oil and gas drilling regulation.
Colorado’s Western Slope drilling…
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