The industry spent $44.5 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies in the first three months of this year, on pace to shatter last year's record. Only the drug industry spent more.Last year's total of $129 million was up 73 percent from two years earlier. That's a faster clip than any other major industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
From the late 1990s through the first half of this decade, the oil industry spent roughly $50 million to $60 million a year on lobbying. It ramped up lobbying in 2006, when Democrats retook Congress, and further as President Barack Obama took office.
Does leave any doubt in your mind about:
- Big Oil intending to stall or kill outright any efforts to move our economy to a more sustainable model?
- Big Oil clearly putting the profits of a few incredibly rich criminals (DICK Cheney comes to mind, but he's far from alone) about the well-being of our entire society?
- This having nothing to do w/ "free enterprise"? Big Oil has been nursing at the taxpayers' collective breast for a century. They've been engaged in criminal market manipulation to undercut competition for a similar period.
Reduce your oil footprint. Only you can do it. The most well-intentioned members of Congress are hopelessly outgunned in this. Any of them who try will be targeted for de-election, and if you think that Democrats are ineffective (they are), just keep in mind that the Republicans don't even want to change this. They are Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Insurance.
If we don't take responsibility for reducing our fossil fuel use, nothing anyone else tries to do will matter.
On the other hand, if we do cut our use, we can geld these swine.
