Big Oil

With energy prices high, Big Oil rules atop the Fortune 500, helping to put Texas just a hair behind California as home to the highest-revenue corporations -- 52 firms, compared with the Golden State's 53. The magazine's latest list of mega-enterprises, released Monday, showed Exxon Mobil in the Dallas suburb of Irving edging out Wal-Mart Stores for the top spot, with 2011 revenue of $453 billion, compared with $447 billion at the Arkansas-based...

Re "Most in U.S. worried about sea level rise," March 30 Building sea walls and other measures to protect coastal developments address the symptoms of climate change, not the cause. We need to support legislation to counteract global warming, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Climate Protection Act of 2013. Insurance companies should think twice about offering storm insurance for coastal areas; or if they do, the premiums should be comparable to what Californians have to pay for earthquake insurance.

Afew years ago, when SUVs still ruled American roads and gasoline prices were skyrocketing, consumers and politicians howled that oil companies were guilty of price-gouging because they refused to increase refinery capacity; the companies responded that it would be crazy to build more refineries to meet a spike in demand that was probably temporary. Now the other shoe has dropped: Demand has fallen through the floor, and oil companies are shutting down refineries as a result. And once again, consumer groups are accusing them of price-gouging.

SACRAMENTO - Although many of California's cities and counties have been struggling financially, putting off road repairs, cutting back library hours and reducing police patrols, there is one way in which they have not held back: hiring Sacramento lobbyists. Local governments' spending on advocacy in the Capitol has surged in recent years, topping $96 million during the two-year legislative session that ended last fall - an increase of nearly 50% from a decade ago. The sum dwarfs the lobbying bills of the state's largest labor unions, big oil companies and other energy interests combined, according to the California secretary of state's office.

Analysts are expecting a bonanza when Exxon Mobil Corp. announces its fourth-quarter earnings on Monday; the company's stock has jumped by nearly 20% during the last year, and in the first three quarters of 2010, its profit was $21.2 billion ? not a bad haul during a worldwide recession. Other oil companies have had similar success, thanks to growing demand in India and China. Yet U.S. taxpayers subsidize this industry to the tune of $4 billion a year. This kind of largesse toward a hugely profitable business seems bizarre, especially at a time when the federal deficit is reaching alarming proportions, yet efforts to end the tax deductions and credits for companies that don't need them have gone nowhere.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. reaped lucrative profits in 2011 -- and the energy company reduced its new chief executive's compensation. Stephen I. Chazen, who took over the chief executive job in May from Ray R. Irani, received a compensation package worth $31.7 million last year compared with the $38.1 million in 2010 when he was president, the Westwood energy company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. After years of shareholder criticism about how much Occidental paid its top officers, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company decided in 2010 to change how it determined executives' payout to make it more difficult to receive maximum compensation.

Upset about high gasoline prices? So are the folks in Congress -- they just have a different way of showing it. As Time staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Christi Parsons reported Thursday: “The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing 'just fine' while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices.”...

Hey, for the health of our country, I'll take Big Oil over Big Entertainment any day. BILL HAYDEN Santa Maria

Former Vice President Al Gore is used to taking pot shots from the right, and he's getting peppered with them lately following his decision to sell his unpopular Current TV network to Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news channel still vilified by many conservatives as the voice of the Taliban. Gore doesn't have much trouble dismissing that canard -- Al Jazeera's international coverage has in recent years become competitive with the best in the world -- but the grief he's getting from the left clearly makes him a lot more uncomfortable.

GOP's love of Big Oil Re "GOP's Barton defends BP, at party's peril," June 18 Outrageous is too mild a term to characterize Rep. Joe L. Barton's (R-Tex.) criticism of President Obama's negotiation with BP to provide a $20-billion gulf relief fund. In referring to this compensation (without a cap) for the victims of the oil giant's culpability that resulted in the death of 11 individuals and the most devastating environmental disaster in our nation's history as a "shakedown," he has revealed the way Republicans view the president.

Former Vice President Al Gore is used to taking pot shots from the right, and he's getting peppered with them lately following his decision to sell his unpopular Current TV network to Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news channel still vilified by many conservatives as the voice of the Taliban. Gore doesn't have much trouble dismissing that canard -- Al Jazeera's international coverage has in recent years become competitive with the best in the world -- but the grief he's getting from the left clearly makes him a lot more uncomfortable.

With energy prices high, Big Oil rules atop the Fortune 500, helping to put Texas just a hair behind California as home to the highest-revenue corporations -- 52 firms, compared with the Golden State's 53. The magazine's latest list of mega-enterprises, released Monday, showed Exxon Mobil in the Dallas suburb of Irving edging out Wal-Mart Stores for the top spot, with 2011 revenue of $453 billion, compared with $447 billion at the Arkansas-based...

Occidental Petroleum Corp. posted a slight increase in first-quarter profit on higher oil prices and record production as energy giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell reported lower net income. Westwood-based Occidental, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, said it generated net income of $1.56 billion in the first quarter, or $1.92 a share, up from $1.55 billion, or $1.90, in the same quarter of 2011. Revenue jumped to $6.27 billion from $5.73 billion a year earlier. Occidental Chief Executive Stephen I. Chazen said production rose to the equivalent of 755,000 barrels of oil a day, "the highest in Occidental's history," from 730,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2011.

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- Just before President Obama gave his scathing critique of the Republican Party on Tuesday, Mitt Romney sought to blunt the impact by accusing him of failing to take responsibility for the rise in gasoline prices. Campaigning at a fast-food restaurant in this Milwaukee suburb on the day of Wisconsin's Republican presidential primary, Romney criticized a television ad that Obama's reelection campaign started airing this week in six White House battleground states.

Upset about high gasoline prices? So are the folks in Congress -- they just have a different way of showing it. As Time staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Christi Parsons reported Thursday: “The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing 'just fine' while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices.”...

WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing "just fine" while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices. The measure to kill the industry tax preferences failed on a 51-47 procedural vote Thursday. It needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster that was supported by some Democrats from oil-rich states.

WHO'S AFRAID of Big Oil? Apparently, California's elected officials. Gasoline prices are stuck well above last year's record highs and about 50 cents above the national average. Yet state politicians are not saying or doing a thing, except for raking in political cash from the oil companies and flying around the world on their dime. Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once claimed that he was so rich he did not need anyone else's money -- and who isn't running for another office.

Fairfax, Va.-based Mobil, the No. 2 oil company, said its profit fell 2%. "Third-quarter results were disappointing due to unfavorable market conditions in many of the businesses where we have a substantial presence," Chairman Lucio A. Noto said, adding that the company was hurt by unexpected refinery outages. Mobil earned $769 million, or $1.92 per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compares with $786 million, or $1.95, earned in the 1995 quarter.

In an unusual but calculated political move, Senate Republicans declined to block a Democratic bill that would repeal tax breaks for oil companies --  choosing instead to launch a floor debate on the legislation as a way to showcase the Keystone XL pipeline and other GOP proposals aimed at curbing sky-high gas prices. Republican-led opposition will almost certainly defeat the bill on final passage later this week. But by allowing debate, the GOP hopes to harness voter angst over prices at the pump as a political weapon against President Obama's energy policies.